Inbound Marketing: Blog at first sight

Over the years blogging has shown to have influenced major business decision, but even more importantly determines the buying powers of customers. Nearly 40% of companies in the United States Blog, and in those companies they have increased their leads by 136%, and in South Africa less than 4% blog and those that do blog have increased their leads by 271%. Clearly indicating that blogging is an essential part of every business's marketing strategy. 

Blogging in South Africa has been a smart business concept, meaning it is not a small business or big business tool. In the 2010-2011 financial year, businesses cut their marketing budgets by the biggest margin in two decades, and those who maintained and sometimes increased their sales activity were blogging among other form of inbound marketing. 

When thinking about blogging, do not think like a businessman, but think about a journalist or a magazine editor. Your blogging goal is to engage your audience with industry expertise, to educate and to provide insight in the solutions that you are offering. Your blog should not be about promoting any of your products as this will quickly make your audience feel like you are pitching to them, but let your article serve as a helpful guide to your industry's in's and out's. 

When writing your article be open minded and be ready to take negative criticism and be open to the idea that other marketers and the general public are going to have a different opinion on your article. Allow yourself to be moved by articles published by other professionals in your industry. Promoting the good that your competitor is doing on your blog is a sign of confidence, and if you get the chance comment on their blog or a proper platform on the good work they are doing. You would have earned the respect of your audience and they will fall in love with your integrity. 

A well-constructed blog post should include several key components: 

• An Attention-Grabbing Article Title: Because your blog article's title is the first thing people will see, it's important to make sure it clearly indicates what the article is about, is concise, keyword rich (because the header tag is the most important for SEO), and attention grabbing. 
• Well Written & Formatted Text: The body of your article should be well-written and formatted in a way that makes it easy to read. 
• Images/Videos: Relevant multimedia content can make a blog article more memorable and fun to read. It also helps to break up text to make it more pleasing to the eye. 
• Links: Include in-text links to relevant content. These can also point to landing pages to help you generate more leads for your content. 
• Call-to-Action: Each and every blog article you publish should include a relevant call-to-action at the bottom of the article to help boost lead generation. 

There are also ways that you can promote your blog so as to attract more traffic to your blog and redirect traffic to your website. Here are 7 ways in which you can optimize your blog. 

1. Include Social Media Sharing buttons: social media buttons like facebook, pinterest, twitter and linkedin encourage the audience to share your content with their personal networks and expanding your reach beyond your networks. 
2. Eye-catching & Optimized titles: Be clear and direct, create urgency and people love  titles that gives them numbered 'How To's' or bullets. 
3. Formatting: Using formatting to make your text into nice readable chunks is a good idea. 
4. Make it Actionable: Whether your blog was found through a search engine, email or subscription, when you have links on how to solve their problem on the blog, the chances are high that they will refer it to their networks. 
5. Relevance: Using metaphors in your blog is a useful part of storytelling and in your blog you can also use it to engage your readers. 
6. Be Entertaining: Be informative and also entertaining, when you use humor and other forms of entertainment makes your blog memorable to your readers
7. Definitive: Great blog posts are not meek or subtle, they are direct and definitive. Take a stand on your advise and never waiver or doubt it, the article you wrote is of your professional opinion. 

Blogging makes your audience trust that you are professional in your trade, it generates traffic to your blog and your website and you are able to generate leads and increase your hit rate and your conversion rate. Ensure that your content is engaging and optimize it to expand your reach. Network and constantly invite people to your blog, those who are reluctant to join will most likely become your loyal bloggers. 

I would like to get your opinions on your blogging ideas and post them on the comments field. And if you have a business idea and looking for a cost-effective way to market it, blog at first sight. 

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