Business Blogs

So you’ve started your blog, put up a basic bio on your About page, and you’ve got a few good posts up.  The content is good and the search engines are sending some traffic your way, but you’d like to have even more readers.  Now you need to get people reading it (your friends and family don’t necessarily count unless you can get them to pass your link along to everyone they know and then some).

It’s the blogging equivalent of the tree falling in a forest - if there’s no one there to hear it crash, does it make a sound?  By the same token, is your blog a valuable tool if no one is reading it? Here’s a few ways to get plenty of incoming links:

1.  Comment on other blogs.  I’ve touched on this before, but it bears repeating. Comment on the blogs that you admire, and try to add something substantive to the discussion.  People are more likely to click on your link if they think that you can provide them something useful, entertain them, or teach them something new.

2. Create blogroll of blogs that you enjoy, admire, and read regularly.  Not only will this give your readers new blogs to read (sort of a “if you like X, you’ll love Y” thing), the other bloggers can tell you’ve linked to them through their stats or Technorati.  You can also conversationally link to other bloggers with relevant content in your posts.

3.  Claim your blog on Technorati and use your tags wisely.   Technorati is more than just an internet popularity contest, it’s a valuable blog promotion tool (you can see who’s blogging about the same topics, who has linked to you, who has favorited you, and all sorts of other useful stuff.  If you haven’t yet claimed your blog, go do that now - do not pass go, do not collect $200, do not even finish reading this post.

4.  Join Blog Carnivals that fit your subject matter.  A Blog Carnival is a type of multi-author blog event that consists of a list of permalinks to blog posts on a pre-defined topic.  This is an excellent way to garner publicity for a new blog and draw attention to some of your best posts.  You can also start blog carnivals once you become more established in the blogosphere.

5. Offer to guest-blog on popular blog in your niche.  This strategy is best deployed after you’ve been blogging for a while and already have some incoming links.  Becoming a guest blogger involves approaching the owners of other blogs you enjoy and offering to write a post for them - be sure to emphasize the unique skills and content that you can provide for their readers (and for them - chances are they’ll be happy that they get a day off from blogging).  Used properly, this technique can drive tons of traffic your way.

There are plenty of other ways to get incoming links, and I’ll be mentioning them in the upcoming weeks, so check back and keep creating compelling content.

Blogging is all about building relationships - with fellow bloggers through linking and commenting, with readers by providing compelling content, and with potential clients, customers, and employers though marketing yourself (and your product if that applies).  This post from Guy Kawasaki’s excellent blog reminded me of the importance of expressing your personality and how sometimes the best PR is result of simply being yourself.

Here’s my favorite part:

“You don’t have to seem all grown-up and boring. Every entrepreneur feels vaguely disreputable. Maybe you drive a crappy car. Maybe you never went to prom. There are enough stuffed suits in this world to fill fifteen Wall Street Journals a day. As anyone who watches American Idol will tell you, what this spun-out, over-hyped world is absolutely famished for is a little genuine personality. And, outside of your technology, it’s probably the only thing you have. So stop trying to be like IBM and just be yourself.”

It’s simple advice, but in the effort to seem professional and organized we often forgot that sometimes the PR spin machine sacrifices personality for slickness and a fancy first impression.  In the end, however, your clients and customers aren’t doing business with your publicists, they’re doing business with you.  Blogging is a hands-on way to build a personal connection with your readers - and it’s really, really easy once you get in the blogging groove.

Besides the all-important relationship with your readers, blogging lets you reach out to other bloggers in the same industry or niche.  Commenting on other blogs - don’t forget to put your blog’s URL in the appropriate blank - is one to make a name for yourself in the blogosphere.  By maintaining a blogroll (a list of your favorite blogs in the sidebar), you can promote other talented bloggers, and they can promote you on their own blogroll.  Once you become an established blogger, you also can volunteer to do guest posts and create blogging carnivals relevant to your subject matter (I’ll be discussing both of these strategies in future posts).

Blogging is also immediate and candid - you’ll be able to update your blog as often as you want and share news with clients and customers almost as soon as it happens. Besides, keeping your own blog will give you some “internet street cred” within the blogosphere and social media networks, and that’s increasingly valuable in the Web 2.0 era.  However, this isn’t the main reason to start blogging.

The two biggest reasons that blogging is an excellent PR move are:

1. Transparency.  Blogging makes you accessible and open, and this fosters trust from your readers.   After all, if you’re willing to share the details of your business and your life with them in an unfiltered manner, you’ve probably to be an honest, real person to do business with - and in business as in all things, it’s better to be liked for who and what you really are, than hated (or worse - ignored!) for what you are not.

2. Passion.  No one will ever be quite as passionate about your business as you are, especially not a paid-for publicist or PR agency.  People respond to passion, so don’t be afraid to let it come through loud and clear in your blog.