What is a blog? A blog is an online "journal" that allows you to create and publish content. Blogs also, usually, allow readers to leave original comments and to respond to other readers' comments. Most blogs can be broken down into four main components:
Post- The post is the main portion, the meat and potatoes, of any blog. A post is the actual content you have created and published for readers to review. What you are reading now is the post of this blog entry.- Comments- Comments are feedback your readers leave. Comments are one way you can engage your audience and get them involved. The comments form for this blog is directly under the post.
- Sidebars- Sidebars are the static information on the sides of your posts. Common examples of sidebar information include social media icons, videos, pictures and a biography of the blogger. Our sidebar includes social media icons for Twitter, LinkedIn, and Facebook, a way to subscribe to our blog, a list of our latest posts, and posts by category.
- Header- The headers are the text that is usually bold and larger than the post. Headers set the tone for your blog and sometimes are embedded with links.
Blogs are great ways to get content out on the internet. For one thing, Google loves blogs. Blogs give Google fresh content that is constantly changing. Another reason blogs are great is they provide more ways for customers to find you. If you don't have a blog, then search results for your company are going to be dominated by what other people are saying about you. The more content you have, the more you will show up in search results.
Having the right kind of content is important though. If you only blog about your company, your blog is very swiftly going to feel like advertising and you are going to lose readers. You need to focus on blogging about larger ideas and your industry as a whole.
If you are an industrial distribution company or manufacturer you wouldn't want to only blog about your products and services. Instead, you should focus on blogging about industry topics. You could blog about how to find a particular solution, what technical problems are most common, or even changes to engineering standards in your industry. Your content should be relevant and provide the information your readers need.
Becoming a valuable source for industry information and expertise is a terrific way to attract prospects to your company and position you for the call when they need your help.
