Tips To Increased Website Traffic and Sales Leads - Blogs

Do Blogs Increase Sales or Site Traffic?
Everyone thinks so but real numbers are hard to come by.

If you look you can find evidence that this is true. Looking at these two articles by HubSpot, you can see blogs improve small businesses traffic and also bloggin can lead to more sales leads.

If blogging helps drive traffic and sales lead why does it do so, and what should you do to take advantage of blogging.

Resource vs. Business Tool

Most people look at blogs as a resource. They visit them to be educated or entertained. Websites are viewed as part of some company's marketing effort.  There are exceptions, such as Wikipedia, but websites are usually there to sell you something, and everyone knows it.

Blogging Tip #1: Be Informative
Early in the buying cycle people are looking for information not a commercial. People want to learn about the product or service. They read reviews, look for tips and are gathering background information to help them make a decision. You blog should provide information that helps your audience - new and current customers. Don't be afraid to link to other resources. make it easier for your visitors to find supplemental or supporting information.

Blogging Tip #2: Be Prolific
More Is better. As the study from HubSpot shows there is a critical mass when the number of articles helps increase sales leads. From their study the number appears to be about 20.

I would like to know a bit more about their data; such as how long were those blogs with over 20 posts blogging and did the larger blogs do more to promote their blog. But in general the results make sense. The more content you have, the more of a resource search engines (and people) will think you are. With more content you are more likely to be found and read.

Blogging Tip #3: Be Relevant
Keep your audience in mind. Don't churn out 20 articles in a week about fluff, keep tip #1 in mind when writing.

Blogging Tip #4: Be Consistent
Plan on writing about the related topics weekly. If you are selling widgets write about widgets. If you are writing about Social Media and SEO for small businesses write about that every week. Pick a topic or area of interest and stick with it.

Blogging Tip #5: Target Keywords
There is nothing wrong with using marketing strategy in your blog. Place keywords in your page title, headlines and text. Just remember not to over do it. You are writing for people not search engines.

Blogging Tip #6: Soft Sell
Mention your company name and service / products in your blogs. Do it infrequently and where it makes sense. You can always say something like "To learn how we can help you beat your competition using the internet contact us at zajon.com."

Let me know what you think of these tips. Please leave a comment.