Goals vary based on one’s station in life. With young kids, your goal may just be to get through the day without being covered in bodily fluids or having a sick baby cough directly into your open mouth. However with businesses, long-term goals may be more structured and attainable through traceable processes such as social media interaction and blogging. The importance of blogging is often overlooked or misunderstood. Many companies start a blog out of a feeling of obligation when the business is starting up and before they have any true goals. This may not be the best approach as a poorly maintained blog can give off the impression of poor management or that a company does not care enough about their website and customer interaction.
Many may remember the days of the chat room and message boards, but blogging has come a long way. It is now a thoughtful and time-consuming process, and a blog cannot be everything to everyone. So why are you blogging? When starting a business, the answer to this should really depend on realistic goals you want to accomplish. Identifying those isolated goals should be the first step when creating a blog.
Goals
Increasing Traffic:
Generally customers find websites online by using a search engine. Bringing consumers to your site as opposed to going out and finding them is referred to as inbound marketing. Two main types of inbound marketing are:
1. Search Engine Optimization: Identifying targeted keywords that are related to your website.
2. Pay-per-click Advertising: Using paid keywords that populate first to match the purpose of the search.
Adding blog posts to a website improve your inbound marketing by increasing the number of indexed pages that will show up on a search. If someone likes the post enough to share on social media, it can catch on and spread like wildfire. With any business, creating as many paths to the content as possible is key because every consumer has a preference.
Creating Consumer Interaction:
With social media being what it is today, many consumers want to feel like part of the company as opposed to a target for a sale. Blogging personalizes a business and makes potential customers that there is not a faceless entity at the other end but an actual individual. It also allows for direct feedback. Many companies even allow for certain customers to guest blog about an experience.
Education:
Having a blog allows for richer interaction in all areas, including education. With some less straightforward products and services, educating the public should be the first goal so they fully understand what the company is about. Consumers want to feel educated about product and having experts or current uses chime in on a blog can make people feel more comfortable using a certain business. It is also a good way to highlight special aspects. If your business is, for example, especially environmentally conscious, this is a great place to share more information. Furthermore, the lack of a blog can make a company look like they do not care as much about the customer and their knowledge about a product.
Leadership:
Blogs are a good way for a company to share accomplishments and status within an industry. If your goal is to establish yourself as a thought leader in a particular industry, make sure your ideas and content are interesting, unique, and exciting so that you stand out and are not just regurgitating old ideas. Ensure your posts are unique enough that they will drive traffic constantly and not just in the beginning.
Like most things, a back to basics approach is always effective when deciding on goals. Keep it simple or else people may get turned to based purely on navigating a site. So while it is yet another thing to take care of on our ever-growing list, the benefits of properly maintaining a customer-friendly blog with clear goals are far worth it.
