By: Carol M. Aldridge

As a business owner, some of your top marketing priorities should include growing your audience and increasing your visibility. Although there are several ways to go about this, these three key strategies, work hand-in-hand:


Blogging, Email Marketing, and Lead Capture Systems

• Blogging - Creating regular, unique content on your website automatically increases your SEO, especially if the content is rich in keywords.  To do this effectively, be sure your website has built-in blogging functionality.  Because then, each click will bring your readers directly to your website where they can also learn more about your business. This doesn’t have to be expensive or complicated. Wordpress and Weebly are two free options that offer integrated blogging capability. (See Quick Tips for Creating a Successful Blog, below.)
  
  

“In fact, if your business’ website does not have a blog (or “learning center”) that is actively updated on a regular basis, then you are missing a huge opportunity to increase your company’s visibility and therefore increase your digital reach—your potential client base and your bottom line.”   ~Social Media Today

• Email Marketing - Set-up an account with an email marketing service like MailChimp or Constant Contact. Then every time you create a new blog post, email your subscribers with an introduction and a link to the full post on your site. If you’re creating quality content that your audience is interested in, you should see a spike in web traffic with each post. 
  
  
• Opt-In Form - Create a sign-up form that links to your email marketing account’s contact list. The simpler, the better. Make it super easy for them to subscribe. First name and email address should be all the ‘required’ information you need. 

• Subscriber Incentive - Create a free report or pdf ebook that solves a problem your target audience is facing. Then include a link to the report in your subscriber “welcome email”.
  

• Landing Page - Build a landing page on your website that includes a graphic of your free report, an appealing description and your subscriber’s sign-up form. This step is critical, as it provides a unique URL that you can share to encourage new subscribers to sign-up! 
  
  

Quick Tips for Creating A Successful Blog

- Write quality content that appeals to your audience and addresses their needs. 

- Edit, Edit, Edit. Then proofread and edit again. Whenever possible, have another qualified professional edit your text as well. 

- Use compelling images to grab your readers’ attention.

- Be sure to include a powerful title. Our friends at CopyBlogger have written a comprehensive series that will be sure to help you craft compelling headline titles. 

- Include social media share buttons on each post.

- Include a resource box at the end of each post with more info about your business and a link to your opt-in landing page.

- Format your paragraphs for quick reading, including bold subheadings and bullet points.

- Use quality keywords to maximize SEO.

- Whenever possible, link to other pages and blog posts on your website. Be sure all links are set to open in a new tab or window.


Well, that’s a good start, but I have so much more information to share with you. Soon we’ll take a look at several proven ways to promote your content beyond your subscribers’ inbox, driving even more traffic to your website…so stay tuned.