Four Important Factors To Increase Blog Traffic

Sometimes, when attempting to attract more visitors to a blog, bloggers and online marketers tend to overlook simple factors and considerations and instead focus on more advanced online marketing techniques. This is all well and good, but possibly unnecessary. Online marketing methods such as SEO, PPC, backlinks, etc., mean very little if the content of the blog isn't informative and engaging. Even if you succeed in getting visistors to your blog, the appearance of the blog or boring, uninspired, or confusing headlines may quickly make them leave.

Focus on Captivating Headlines
Your content may in fact be great, but a bland headline won't let visitors know that. Clue them in as soon as they visit your blog as to the main idea of each article that is presented to them. Try to capture their attention by letting them know why the information contained in the article is important for them to read, or how it can benefit them. If you can work in a few SEO keywords, even better.

Avoid Rambling
The great thing about blogs is they give us the opportunity to write as little or as much as we want. But not all blogs benefit from long posts. When attempting to market to consumers or other businesses, it's best to keep your content strictly to the point, providing only the necessary, critical information. If you tend to go on rambling a bit or being repetitive, consumers, and especially those in B2B, will start to lose interest in the content. Keeping your posts self-contained will keep the information fresh.

Graphics: Yes or No?
There's nothing wrong with using pictures and graphics, provided they are relevant to the blog post. Try not to clutter up the page, don't overdo it, and be careful about the sizing. Unless you are displaying artwork or photographs, you don't need graphics that consume the entire page and force visitors to scroll past them in order to locate the remainder of the article.

Using Visitors to Get the Word Out
Satisfied visitors are your best means of getting the word out about your blog and attracting new visitors, so long as you make it easy for them to do so. Most blogs allow you to integrate "sharing" buttons for each blog post or on the sidebar of the blog, as well as RSS feeds. These buttons allow visitors to instantly share your blog post on social networking sites such as Twitter, Digg, Facebook, and many others with just the click of a mouse. This type of online marketing exposure is invaluable and should definitely be utilized.

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E-Commerce Websites and Business Blogs

E-commerce websites benefit from common online marketing solutions such as search engine optimization (SEO) and Pay-Per-Click (PPC), but in an extremely competitive marketplace, businesses can further maintain and increase their share of the market with a business blog as well.

The blog is often overlooked as a viable marketing tool by many e-commerce websites for a variety of reasons, the most common of these being that managers simply don't understand the marketing potential. Essentially acting as an extension of your website, a blog's content can help lure in new customers and clients by attracting them with engaging, informative content. A well-maintained blog will continue to attract new visitors, which in turn will utilize the blog as a portal to your corporate e-commerce website. This serves to increase both brand awareness and ROI.

Of course, maintaining an effective blog can be time-consuming, as fresh content must be written on a consistent basis. If you do not have a copywriter on staff, you can hire freelancers to write content for your business blog, or retain the services of a web marketing agency.

You should also note that a blog is most effective not only when the content is fresh and interesting, but also when it is search engine optimized. Integrating SEO into your blog posts will ensure that your blog will be find easier and more often during relevant search engine queries. A solid understanding of SEO is essential, as well as experience and knowledge of which keywords might work best to capture the attention of your particular target market.

While you can take advantage of free keyword tools to help you choose and utilize keywords in your blog posts, an experienced SEO team can expand upon and improve the SEO of your entire blog. SEO keywords can be integrated into your blog description, metatags, links, and tags relative to each particular blog post.

Search engines such as Google also notice and prefer blogs that maintain consistent updates, so fresh content posted on a regular schedule is important to both the search engines and to your readers.

For further tips on maintaining an effective blog for your e-commerce website, you might want to read " RSS Feeds: An Easy Way to Generate More Traffic for Your Corporate Blog."

Contact Active Web Group, Long Island's leading full-service web marketing agency, for information regarding SEO content services, e-commerce, email marketing and more.

Thinking of Starting a Small Business Blog? Active Web Group Offers These Top Tips.

The Internet marketing professionals at Active Web Group, Long Island’s leading online marketing solutions agency, know that today’s Internet marketplace is more competitive than ever. Businesses both large and small need to explore every online marketing avenue in order to remain competitive, and a corporate website simply isn’t enough anymore – businesses are utilizing marketing methods such as SEO, PPC, Email Marketing and more. But many fail to recognize the potential benefits of starting a small business blog.

A blog can act as an extension of your website and attract new visitors and customers, and increase sales and brand recognition. But there are important factors to consider before starting a small business blog. Although initiating a blog is a fairly simple process and requires very little or no expense, your company’s marketing efforts may be in vain if the following tips offered by Active Web Group are not considered.

1. Determine your goals – What is your ultimate purpose for starting a blog? Will you be posting informative articles, marketing related content such as press releases and promotional messages, or utilizing the blog as a means to open further communication with your client base? Perhaps all of the above? How closely related will your blog be to your main corporate website?

2. Decide upon a name – The name of your blog should be short, easy to remember, and incorporate targeted keywords that will make it easily searchable by your target market.

3. Who will host the blog – There are many options available for free online blog hosting, making setup quick and painless. Wordpress, Blogger, and others allow you to easily customize templates, colors, fonts, and more, so that your blog can closely resemble the theme of your corporate website if you so desire.

You might also choose to purchase your own blog software and host the blog on your own servers. Assuming you have an employee who is well-versed in such technical skills, then these efforts might be worthwhile.

4. Design & Content – Both will affect how well-received your blog is by visitors. Typically, you’ll want the design of your blog to accurately represent your brand, image, and corporate colors. Most blog software allows you to easily cutom-design your blog. Content is a bit more tricky.

You want to provide content that offers some value to visitors of your blog. This is what will keep them coming back on a consistent basis, serving to increase brand recognition and convert clicks to sales. If you plan on posting a variety of content, it would be best to determine specific categories and integrate this into the blog design, enabling visitors to quickly navigate to the desired section. To increase the searchability of your blog (enabling search engines to find you blog in response to specific search terms ), you’ll want to try to integrate SEO keywords into whatever content you post.

Regardless of whether you’re posting informative articles and industry-related news, press releases, or promotional sales and specials, SEO will go a long way towards attracting new visitors.

Lastly, be sure to update your blog on a regular basis. At least twice a week should be sufficient. A good method of ensuring this practice is to have an in-house copywriter or a freelance or online marketing agency writer deliver a steady flow of blog content so that something is always ready to be posted.

5. Promote Your Blog – Use social networking tools such as Facebook, Twitter, forums, and Linked:In to promote your blog and post links to articles and postings. Also, be sure to include links to your blog on your corporate website, as well as a reciprocal link from your blog back to the website.

As your blog grows in content and visitors, you’ll want to examine advanced marketing methods such as analytics, and methods of increased interaction with visitors.