Stoy Solutions blog

Blogging is a direct way to communicate with your customers. I felt one of the first posts in our blog should be about blogs themselves, as I’m often asked how good they are for the business, SEO and the image of the business…

Apart from simply telling an interesting story it will help you build loyalty and connect with your audience. You may also generate instant feedback and spark fruitful discussions.
One of the main benefits is that your blog will be visible to search engines, making it easier to spot you.
Most people feel that blogs are trustworthy compared standard web pages, because they directly represent someone’s opinion.
As you have already seen, online marketing is now a lot more than banner ads design to attract people’s attention. It is about understanding your customers through knowing the keywords that they use and then drive users to the pages related to their particular interests, needs and problems. Your content is king, and it needs to be useful. If readers are happy, they will return again and again, and this is key to success, thus you will not only sell products or services, but also build strong relationships with your customers, increase their trust, etc, etc.
Because people read blogs to find unbiased information, you should make it a sales pitch – instead, try to add knowledge in your domain that they will appreciate. As usual – the more targeted your blog is, the better.
Some practical tips:
Your blog’s name and tagline are important to search engines – choose them carefully.
Help your blog’s “importance” by linking it to your company website.
Add social media tags for services like del.icio.us, digg, etc.
RSS – it is a way of allowing other people to “subscribe” to your blog and reading the articles without even being on your website. All blogs should provide you with this functionality.
Be careful when giving contact information – while it’s very important, spammers can detect email address easily and cause nuisence. To avoid this, write emails in human readable, but not computer  readable. Here is ours: hello (at) stoysolutions (dot) com .
Cross-referencing will help you too, so do include links or RSS feed from other blogs and sites. This will automatically update your blog, which sends a positive message to search engines.
Cross-reference within your blog as well – navigation will help users reduce the number of clicks and search engines will enjoy the easier structure and reward you for it. This also means that it is good to keep posts short.
Don’t be disappointed if you don’t receive any comments or even visitors on your website after the first posts. It will take some time for people and search engines to notice you. You can help that by adding a link on your website, newsletters, or even email signatures.
Most importantly: clients will find your blog when searching for information or solution to their problems. However, in order to ensure that your customer will find you, it is crucial to post on topics that will be interesting to your (potential) customers and will add value to services that you provide. Use tools like wordtracker.com and google’s adwords tool .
Interact! Post comments on other people’s blogs. If you build a good relationship with influential bloggers (you will find those on de.licio.us etc). You could recommend your blog, and eventually, services.
Where to start?
Start by reading blogs in your industry. See if you can spot what they do to be successful. Start by posting comments there see if you can engage other people. Finally, when you feel comfortable, you can start your own blog.