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No matter what business you're in, your customers and potential customers probably have a lot of alternative options to your business or service. If your website includes a blog, your potential readers also have a log of options. You need to give them a reason to not only visit your blog, but add it to their daily reads, so that they'll keep coming back. Here are five things you may want to consider to make your blog more appealing to your target audience - five reasons your customers will read your blog.
1) You're easy to read on their mobile device. Make sure your blog is mobile ready, and you may want to begin using QR codes if your target demographic is tech-savvy.
2) Their friends like your blog. Just like in the "real world," there are a few leaders, and most people follow them. Your readers are more likely to find your blog, and read it regularly if people they network with online are linking to it. Encourage your readers to tell their friends about your blog, and make it easy for them to do so by providing great content your readers will want to link to. Polls and questions are great for this, as well as the next three ideas.
3) You have great deals. These can be in the form of discounts that you provide, or links to great deals you've found on the web. As with anything else, you can get too much of a good thing, so don't overdo this. But if people get used to finding good deals on your site that they are likely to use they're more likely to come back regularly.
4) You have freebies. As we discussed last week, offering free items or services can be tricky, but people do like free stuff.
5) You're the niche expert. Several of the sites that I read daily were chosen based on the fact that they are go-to place for information in their niche. For example, Mashable is a one-stop shop for news about social media. TechDirt is an excellent resource for information about government regulation and politics in the tech industry. If you sell chicken wings, you might want to consider being the local online resource carry-out diners or wing-sauce recipes, or local high-school sports, or pretty girls with...no, wait someone already did that. But you get the idea.
What about you? Why do people read your blog?
Jennifer Pointer (e-mail) is in Tulsa, OK. She promotes a simple, a low-tech approach to effective online profile management, search engine optimization and social networking.
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