Your blog should be a powerful business tool and it should also be helping you to influence your customers.  Good, effective blogs build interactive conversations with targeted readers.

Done well, blogging for your business will get faster results than other traditional internet marketing methods.

A blog is one of the best tools to:

• boost your online brand
• increase your website’s search engine rankings
• reach new potential clients
• communicate with your existing clients
• publicise your company’s products and services.

There are 3 main elements to consider if you want to start influencing people with your blog posts.

1.    Build relationships

• Be Positive: Always be positive, avoid being negative and criticising others.  You should try and focus on how to do the best with something and give advice, suggest solutions and provide tips.
• Be Interested: Always take a genuine interest in your readers and look at things from their perspective. What information do they need? What would they find interesting?
• Give Solutions: Talk about practical solutions to the problems that your readers might have. Where applicable, try and encourage the discussion by asking questions.

2.    Selling your ideas

• Motivation:  As you write each blog post, try and consider why your readers would want to do what you are saying.  Make the advantage clear.
• Explain your ideas: Providing real life examples and making these interesting will help make your ideas more visual and memorable to the reader.
• Arguments: Never get involved in an argument online –  even when your readers are making negative comments about you or your business. Stay objective and to the point. Answer each criticism truthfully, thank people for raising the issue and respond factually to any points raised.  Always be respectful to your readers.
• Agreement: A good starting point is to respond to comments by first identifying all areas of agreement. Always try to view things from your reader’s perspective and acknowledge their point of view, even if you believe them to be wrong.

3.    Leadership

• Mistakes: If mistakes have been made, admit them! Having done that move on to explain how you solved the problem caused by the mistake. We are all human and often admission can be a motivating factor to others that are facing the same problems and your account will help them better understand what didn’t work and what did.
• Questions: If possible ask questions in your blog post instead of telling people directly what they should and shouldn’t do.
• Benefits: Focus on the benefits that your readers will receive if they adopt your ideas.
• Respect. Always respect your readers abilities and try and empathise with their situation. Focus on how you can help them to succeed. Your objective should be to encourage them to try new ideas and give them the confidence to take action.

There is no question that successful blogging takes time and dedication and if you do not have both you should consider using professionals like wsiims to set up and maintain your business blog for you. Not only can your blogging influence people, but a good blog will build trust and credibility and make people ‘engage’ with your business.

Be the expert in your industry or niche and others will return regularly to your blog to see what you are saying.

For more information about our blogging services please visit www.wsiims.co.uk/blogs.aspx