It’s hard to believe.
But it’s true.
Despite all the advances in technology, despite the growth in social media sites, despite the growth in the “guru” industry, all you need to promote your business online is a simple blog or website.
It can difficult to persuade other small business owners of the veracity of this statement.
Many assume that it can’t be this simple. They think that they must spend a huge amount of time maintaining and managing social media accounts on sites like Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, etc.
There’s no need at all.
A simple website or blog with useful, comprehensive information about the issues of concern to your target market will work wonders to generate leads and enquiries.
If you combine this with email marketing, you can build trust, position yourself as an authority in your market, and create the opportunity to market to your subscribers again and again by building a relationship with them.
Blog Design
The most important issue with the design of your blog or website is its ease of use and ease of navigation for visitors. You simply want to ensure that your visitors can quickly and easily find what they are looking for.
A free blogging software such as WordPress allows you to choose from a wide range of themes which dictate the look and feel of your site.
Get your own web hosting account too and choose a domain name. This means that you will have complete control of your site and will have a professional looking domain name such as HighClassWidgets.com.
If you choose to host your site on a free hosting acocunt such as at WordPress.com you will only have a domain name like HighClassWidgets.Wordpress.com. This doesn’t look nearly as professional as having your own domain name and hosting account.
It is also less memorable for people to remember.
Good Quality Content
Once you have your website or blog set up you will need to populate it with high quality content.
There are many different types of posts you can use but the most popular and effective types fall into 2 categories:
1. A “How to” type post and
2. A List type post.
Examples of these types of posts include “How to Minimize Your Income Tax by the End of the Year” and “13 Surprising Ways to Make Money from Home”.
People love these types of posts and provided they are genuinely informative and authoritative you could easily use these formats alone on your site/blog.
But there really is no limit to the types of posts and topics you can cover, provided you do them well and genuinely help your readers with highly informative content.
An excellent starting point is to answer the most common and troublesome questions that customers/clients in your industry ask again and again.
If you commit to publishing good quality blog posts on your blog/website over a sustained period of time you will see your website traffic take off.
And then you truly will see that a simple blog or website is all you need to grow your business online.
I’ve done business in the last 12 months with a significant number of solicitors who don’t have a website or blog. This surprised me greatly and is a massive missed opportunity for the solicitors in question.
If any profession is ideally placed to extract the maximum value of using words to explain intimidating and sometimes complex topics to worried readers, it is the legal profession.
After all, the stock in trade of the legal world is words, whether they are used in legislation, contracts, litigation, correspondence etc.
Have you a blog or website? Are you maximizing your time and effort?
Or are you using the same old “we are passionate about nuts and bolts (substitute widget of your choice)” guff which is neither persuasive nor credible?