Make Your Blog Work For You

Effective blog posts are those that provide value to your customers while also helping promote your products and services. A good way to achieve those goals of providing value and promoting your firm is by limiting each blog post to a single topic then explaining how you help people with it.

For example, the Posh Puppy Boutique sells 10,000 dog and cat-related products. Writing a single blog post about every use for every product would both bore readers and be extremely long. Instead, blog posts have timely topics such as Easter Baskets for girl and boy dogs.

This particular post has a focus: Easter Baskets. Next, it uses links to take readers to the Posh Puppy Boutique’s website pages describing specific products, complete with a product photo like this pink bunny costume.

By focusing on a holiday, for example, then showing products created for that holiday, your blog can help generate sales. Including links to specific products not only showcases those items, it gets readers to visit your site.

Each blog post also includes photos that help attract and keep attention plus on-line and telephone contact information.

Any company selling products can use a similar approach.

But what about blog posts for firms whose products are the talents of its staff? In other words, how should you handle writing about services, not physical products?

The best method is to create a real-world problem scenario then explain how your services fix it.

For example, let’s say your firm sells flood insurance. Your example would describe a couple who are thinking about buying a home that sits in a flood plain. Even though there are no records of water ever having reached the elevation of their house, the parcel is listed as “subject to flooding.”

Your blog post could explain how much the couple might expect to pay if they had your insurance coverage … and how much someone else would be shelling out if they lacked a flood insurance policy.

Assuming flood insurance is only one product, you could use similar methods to write about each. The key here is to write about these topics at the appropriate time, discussing flood insurance during or just after a heavy rain storm, or fire insurance in mid-summer.

Do not start your flood insurance blog post with, “You need flood insurance because …” Instead, use an approach that hits home with your readers: “John and Jane are glad they have flood insurance after a recent rainstorm destroyed their downstairs.”

Good luck.