Why Create A Blog For Business?

When you think of a blog, what comes to mind? Well, it really depends on the decade. In the 1990's blogging began as a past time to express opinions or thoughts to a general audience. In essence, it was an online journal.

Today, blogging has taken on a whole new purpose. It has become a mode by which businesses communicate to an online audience about their products and services in order to gain customer interest. However, it's most important to stress that an effective blog is not so much about selling products and services as it is about conveying valuable information that will be helpful to the public.

A business blog is more about value than about getting the sale but can eventually lead to a paying customer who remembers your words of wisdom. People like to be educated with useful information and kept up to date about new topics and trends that may influence their buying decisions. Close to 80% of internet users today read blogs and nearly 70% say a blog adds credibility to a website.

In addition, statistics show that blogging has become favored by search engines such as Google. Websites that contain blogs have 434% more indexed pages, hence receive 97% more links to their website than those who don't blog. As a result, those who blog experience a 126% higher lead generation growth than non-bloggers and are 13 times more likely to achieve a positive ROI with regular blogging.

Many business owners and managers who have never blogged before are now seeing the value that it brings, especially those that do business with other businesses. 76% of B2B marketers now blog because they see how profitable it has become to their competitors.

For those of you new to blogging, here are some vital tips to remember before beginning to write:

1. Make your topic about value and relevancy: Provide useful advice, tips and instructions instead of a sales pitch.

2. Readability and Visual Enhancement: Provide content that easily scrolls and is visually inviting. To maximize this, use sub-headings, bullet points, hyperlinks, images and video. These will contribute to a greater engagement and a higher potential for users to become your followers.

3. Diversify: Experiment with different formats such as infographics, videos, interviews and podcasts to see which generates the most interest among your audience. These enhance a blog by adding credibility and authenticity that people can relate to.

4. Be unique and tell a story: Provide a niche, a personal experience, customer testimony or a different spin on a topic that will help you stand out from your competitors.

5. Edit and proofread: Always reread, even have others check your work. You'd be surprised at the grammatical errors you miss that spell check often doesn't catch. Typos and poor sentence structure will most definitely give a bad impression...and as a professional you want to build and maintain credibility, not lose it!

6. Share your blogs: Once you've created your blog masterpiece it's time to show it to your audience. Post it on social media, make it part of an email marketing campaign, share it on a blog page. For further engagement, add a comments platform to encourage feedback from your audience.

7. Frequency and SEO: The best way to increase readership is by blogging often, adding key words to drive search engine traffic and keeping your topics fresh and relevant.

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Contact Andrea Harrison for more information at theprolilficword@gmail.com or 848-213-5520

Why Small Business Needs The Help of A Freelance Writer

As a small business owner, I’m sure you are aware that small business is the cornerstone of today’s economy, and that you see the importance of online presence as a way to promote your products and services. However, you may agree that often you do not have the time, talent, or resources to devote to content marketing. Luckily there are an increasing number of freelance writers available for hire that are knowledgeable and talented with creating the kind of promotional material that will increase your brand awareness in order to build your client base. Whether established or just starting out, many owners like you are good at what they do but lack the knowledge to drive traffic to their site or social media platform. This is when it is crucial to seek the expertise of a freelance writer who understands the importance of SEO driven terminology to draw potential customers. They know how to design keyword rich information relevant to your business that can drive traffic to your services. Some of the most successful practices are through blogging on topics relevant to the product or service being offered, generating newsletters and email blasts on new products, upcoming events and sales announcements, or providing a bio of staff accomplishments or lengthier mission statements and business plans to assist an aspiring entrepreneur in launching their startup.

According to a post by Angie Mohr for Employee of Intuit QuickBooks, existing and potential clients have become aware enough, in terms of social media, of how important that a current blog, email blast, and up to date website is in determining who is relevant enough to provide the products and services that best meet their current needs. Therefore it behooves you, the business owner to find a talented content writer who can draw an audience to your specialty by cleverly crafting a piece that will showcase your expertise. They will save you time and assure you of receiving professional, error-free content with a fresher perspective. In the meantime you can run your business without worry.

Equally, Sara Angeles of Business News Daily sees Freelance Talent as ever increasing in demand because business owners are seeing the value of it in turns of cost savings, flexibility, and passion driven talent whom are work ready as needed. In further research they cited a study from the Plato Group which has revealed that a steady increase of freelancers have entered the market. According to the study, “one-third of Americans or roughly 42 million are freelancers, with experts forecasting freelancers to make up 50 percent of the full-time workforce by 2020.”

Serena Brown, Freelance Writer and Editor with Westman Editorial supports this trend of the entrepreneur more readily outsourcing for content writing by observing through their competitors that this is a cheaper and more socially effective method that can guarantee quality work to yield more impressions and conversions. Without the stressful responsibility of fact checking, assuring SEO, and fixing grammar mistakes themselves, they leave the writing to the experts to yield for them the results.

The ever increasing demand for SEO-driven content marketing has created a growing pool of freelance talent whom are capable of crafting a blog, press release, newsletter, ad, flyer, profile, and web content that will facilitate faster and stronger connections between you and your present and potential customers. As a small business owner in today’s vast and ever-changing global network, it behooves you to understand the value of this growing pool and take advantage of the services that can save you time, keep your brand competitive, and increase your long-term profits.

A Case For Email Marketing

Email Marketing has been around since the 1970's and it's not going away anytime soon. It still proves to be an effective means for business to build relationships by sharing authentic branding content that serves their clientele's needs. Since there are over 3 billion email users today it is the best way to gain an audience and generate business. According to Hubspot, on average, email generates $38 for every dollar spent, which is a 3,800% return on investment. Some strategies to consider when using email are to build relationships, increase brand awareness, share useful content, promote products, generate leads and nurture prospects.

The following determinations and actions need to be made to assist in creating a successful email marketing campaign:

1. APPEAL: Determine your audience's interests and buying habits. Do research for your industry to see what email recipients typically respond to.

2. GOAL: Design your campaign that will be centered around your audience's interests. Choose a strategy above that will best facilitate this.

4. CONTENT APPROACH: Create a type of campaign such as a blog, product announcement or send a weekly newsletter

5. CTA: Have a clear call to action that instructs your audience how to take the next step. This could be as simple as creating a form for people to sign up.

6. GENERATE LEADS: Build your list of subscribers by providing useful of information that your audience will find value in. Some examples that may attract an audience to subscribe to your list is an ebook, webinar, course, newsletter, product promotion or other tool that can provide the kind of knowledge they are seeking.

7. ESTABLISH A SCHEDULE: It is important to be in front of your audience on a consistent basis so they don't lose sight of you. Decide how often you plan to contact your followers and stick to your timeline. Keep them in the know so that you eventually earn their trust. This will enable you to build and maintain a loyal list of subscribers.

6. MEASURE YOUR RESULTS:

Use your KPI's (Key Performance Indicators) to determine if you need to make changes to your campaign in order to improve results. They are Deliverability rate; percentage of emails reaching the recipient's inbox, Open rate; the percentage of people who open your email; Clickthrough rate; the percentage of people that click on your CTAs, and Unsubscribes which measures the number of people who opt out of your email list. The next guideline should help you yield positive results and avoid pitfalls.

7. BE COMPLIANT: It is important to follow email regulations in order to protect your subscribers’ right to only receive emails that they’ve requested. Follow these guidelines to avoid your emails ending up in a spam filter. Failure to heed the rules are likely to blacklist you and destroy any credibility and trust you have with your audience.

● Include your company name and address in every email.

● Use a reliable email service provider with an email associated to your business.

● Make sure subscribers have consented to be on your email list.

● Place visible unsubscribe links within your emails.

● Remove bounced or inactive members from your list.

● Provide a double opt-in to make sure your subscriber is still interested in receiving your emails.

● Securely store contact data and use only for business purposes ● Make sure your emails continue to provide value without empty promises ● CTA should be clear and actionable ● Choose attractive images that are optimized for all devices ● Subject line should be enticing but not salesy and avoid ALL CAPS ● Best time to send an email is Tuesday at 11 AM ● Personalize your email as if sending to a friend

● Segment your emails-- send specific information to specific groups depending on interests and the level of marketing. In other words, you wouldn't send the same message to a recipient who is just being introduced to your brand that you would send to someone you are looking to further engage and nurture for conversion. ● Use KPI's, as mentioned before, to measure the effectiveness of your campaign and revise your content accordingly to assure compliance and audience reach. See further details on crafting effective email campaigns and get some tips to writing compelling emails