Add A Blog To Enhance Your Business Website

What better way to advertise your business than a Blog? I have personally noticed an increasing trend of incorporating a blog portion to the business website and I have to congratulate these forward thinking business owners for giving current, potential and past clients a reason to continue to revisit their site. 

One particular site that does this exceptionally well is Falling Waters Landscape Inc. While the website design is a great display of previous projects I truly enjoy the attention the blog draws to the business and complements the industry as a whole. Topics center around ideas involving increasing the value of your home, forward thinking designs, and environmentally friendly ("Green") landscapes.

Now the beauty of this blog is that if people in the area are looking for a landscape contractor they may Google it or ask their associates for references. Word of mouth is still a very effective tool for generating business but the mighty search engine has proved itself a gem for drumming up new business. The blog itself will increase their digital exposure by refreshing the overall content of the site and each blog entry will add to the results. It will assist in making sure that the website does not drift off the top listings when relevant words or phrases are searched. In essence the addition and maintenance of a blog acts as another portal for people to enter the business through and, as is the case with Falling Waters, supplements the main portion of the site so well.   

A blog can be built into a stand alone money making machine, but the versatility of the blog is now seen in that it can be used to promote, explain and pitch for websites already in operation. Lure the masses (read: customers) in to your site with your blog and then dazzle them with your awesomeness (read: portfolio/website). 

Disclosure: The owner of Falling Waters Landscape Inc is a close friend (and hero) of mine. The website feature was not sponsored but I thought it was a great example of what other small business owners could do to advertise and dazzle potential clients. 

Back on Track

First off I need to apologize for neglecting this experiment for so long. My original intent to let the blog sit for a week to gauge traffic and ad-click results turned into two months because I let other stuff derail my focus such as work and finishing my schooling. Now that things are in order the blogging for money attempt shall go on.

My renewed fervor for blogging is thanks to my pal Beau and his new Foody, Winey, Nerdy Stuff (the name is subject to change pending a Facebook poll) blog and my sister-in-law Nellene's Style Baggage blog. Beau's deals with his passion for cooking (and eating), well priced and delicious wine (Trader Joe's highlights) along with technological tidbits of awesomeness that only he could make understandable. Nellene's deals with a plethora of ingenious tips on DIY (Do-It-Yourself) house projects, fashionable and unique gift ideas at reasonable prices and the delicate subject of when it is time to accept and own your baldness.

Ok so maybe that was a little bit of an attempt at social networking by promoting the blogs of my loved ones but the blogging and online scene is very interconnected. Watching a blog develop from the ground up is not only fun but inspiring and making key connections by means of subscribers or affiliates will not only increase traffic but ramp up that income. More visitors to the site/blog means the higher the chance of one of them clicking your ads or hopping along to one of your affiliates sites and clicking their banners.

A few simple steps to obtaining more subscribers:

1. Ask your friends, family members and coworkers to subscribe to your blog.
2. Write meaningful and helpful articles or posts so that they enjoy visiting your blog.
3. Do not write negative things about your friends, family members or coworkers on your blog.
4. Encourage feedback via the comments section or by email.
5. Advertise your blog by using all social media available to you.
6. Interject humor when possible/appropriate and write about positive things.
7. Have fun with blogging (your readers can tell if you are not enjoying it) and make the most of sharing your thoughts with the world.