Posts Tagged ‘prospects’

Ways To Make Your Blog Helpful For Your Online Business

Thursday, June 18th, 2009

Today, many business owners are realizing the effectiveness of using blogs to promote a business. Blog was derived from the words “web” and “log” and was later coined to refer to the concept of posting a journal entries online. In the past, blogs were used as a means to express personal thoughts and feelings on the web. Now, blogs are used to help a business gain recognition and stronger customer relationships.

If you haven't tried blogging before, then it's about time you try it and see what tremendous change it can bring to your business. Here are some ways to make your blogging experience more enjoyable and successful:

Use blogs to provide information to your prospects.

Unlike a business website, a blog allows you to upload fresh information every day for your readers. By providing useful information about topics that are related to your business, people will begin to see you as a credible resource on your field. This builds trust in your prospects and is a good way to start building strong customer relationships. Although prospects will not buy from your blog, when they have the need for the products and services you offer, customers will surely check out your business website.

Interact with your customers.

Unlike a website, blogs allow more interaction with your customers. For instance, customers can leave their comments or share their thoughts about an entry posted in your blog. Blogs can is also a venue for forum discussions where you can respond to topics and give your share about a topic that interests you. This allows the online community to recognize you as well as the business you represent.

Work on your web design.

Just like your business website, a blog that is well designed gains more followers. A blog that is professional, organized and easy to navigate invites more visitors than a blog that is cluttered and poorly designed. Keep the colors of your fonts professional and easy to read. Avoid using background and font colors that are too bright as to strain the eye.

Use CSS coding.

A CSS format of coding is a lot better than HTML. CSS allows you to edit and make modification on all entries in your blog more easily. This will come in handy when you have already gathered lots of entries in your blog.

Keep focused in providing quality content.

Keeping your site updated with fresh content on a regular basis can be a challenge in the long run. However, don't let up and make sure that you will still maintain the high quality of the content in your site. Keep in mind that the reason you're posting content in your blog is not just to promote your business but to provide interesting and valuable information for the people.

Be active in the online community.

Participation is also required if you want to be successful in blogging. Bloggers are all part of an online community and each of them supports the other. Visiting other blogs and leaving insightful comments will surely turn your blog into a success.

Danielle Jacob is an established online entrepreneur who has maintained strong business relationship with Reputable Wholesale Dropshippers since 1990. Learn how you too can build homebased business empire and profit by dropshipping, the most creative e commerce strategy. Copyright Protected

Offline to Online – Does a traditional offline business need an online presence?

Saturday, May 9th, 2009

There are many traditional businesses still today that do not have an online presence, or if they do, the last time it was updated was the day it was created, back in 1990 something. Times have changed. Customers are now searching for information and to buy from businesses online. Even if you don't have a product to sell online, if your business is not online then you are missing out on potential new prospects and clients to purchase from you online and offline.

There is currently over 1.6 billion people on the internet and about 80% have made at least one purchase on the internet. You have probably even seen your own searching and buying patterns change over the years as well. Five years ago we were very hesitant to give our credit card details online, or sign up if they asked for an address or even a last name. Today with increased security over the internet you are probably one of the 80% that have made a purchase. Further, people are more inclined to research who they are going to buy from online.

You must have a website. If you don't have a website then how are people going to research your services or products. Chances are, unless they can't find the information they are looking for on the internet, that they won't ring you up or send you a letter to discover information about your business. Forget yellow pages advertising as well as now that yellow pages is online, people are searching the yellow pages and the trend is that they are clicking on yellow pages entries that have web sites so they can view the information.
How much is it costing your business not to have an online presence? How many new potential customers are you missing out on each day? An online presence does not need to have all the latest whiz bang flash movies or hype. It just needs to be pertinent content that is appealing to a prospective customer or client.

Before you create the website though, you must have a domain name. Put some thought into what your domain name should be. Sometimes it is better (and you will rank higher) to have the product name as your domain name rather than the name of your business eg. Accounting.com would be better than yourcompanyname.com as people will be searching for accounting rather than your company name (unless of course you have a well known brand such as Levi Strauss or McDonalds). You could register both, which is really good for search engine optimisation.

Once you have your domain registered then you can create your website. Remember to keep the customer in mind when writing the content. It would also be a good idea to have a customer or client critique the content of your website to give you a customer's perspective. When you have the content written, you will then need to find someone to host your website. Most hosting companies also have site building tools. These tools allow you to fill in forms to create your site. Don't forget to add at least one image and also company branding information such as logos. You can have your site up and running in less than an hour. Alternatively you could use a professional web design company to create your website for you.

Congratulations you now have an online presence. Once your site is search engine optimised and ranking well in the popular search engines you should be receiving tons of traffic which in turn will lead to tons of prospective clients or buyers. Good luck with it all.

Suzette Austin
Internet Marketer
http://www.localaccountantsbrisbane.com