So, I have talked through the ‘how to’ of blogging over the last few months and you are probably starting to produce some great posts for your business.

They are sitting proudly on your website but, shock horror – no one has read them?

You are not alone here.  Do not worry!

Also bear in mind that we are not looking for the masses.

But if we write our blog, upload it to our site and do nothing – we may find that precisely that happens – nothing.

Organic views to our website through the normal search channels may lead visitors to read our blog post, which is fabulous – but what about everyone else?

You will have given lots of thought to your target market as part of your business strategy – so where do you find these people?

Of course, online is the only place your customers can and will read your blog.

For this reason you will want to make sure that you are making best use of your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation).

I am not an SEO expert but most blogger platforms make this easy for you and you will be able to insert ‘searchable’ tags into your blog post when you write it.

The key to these tags is to use terms pertaining to your post that are likely to be searched for.  Narrow this down as much as possible.   For example ‘Swimming pools in Aldgate’ rather than ‘London’ – without stating the obvious, you want to narrow this down as much as you can.   Use tags in your blog that people are likely to search for if they are looking for your content.

This is also the part where we see how Blogging and Social Media go hand in hand.   I will talk about Social Media in a little more depth in my next post but I will just touch on a few things for now.

Social media community and local groups are a good place to start.  If you are a small local business then this is most likely the place you will find some of your customers.

These types of groups are often found on Facebook.  You may well already be active in them.  They are a great place to engage with others.  A great place for local recommendations.  There is no reason not to share you own content in these groups.

Likewise there are the other social media platforms – Twitter, Instagram and Pinterest.  Instagram and Pinterest are certainly great places for sharing your visual content.  Again, I will talk a little more about this next time.

The most important thing with any of these platforms is to engage.  Share your own content by all means but it’s very important not to share links and run.  This is probably as useful as just leaving a post sitting on your blog.  Remember that people will buy into you and your brand.  It’s important to interact with others and build trust.

It is useful to have a strategy around how you will promote your posts.  Social Media can be very time consuming and you want to make the time spent count.  Quite often we can be easily distracted when using any of the platforms, so I find it particularly important to be very clear about how much time I will spend on each platform and which ones work best for my content.

It might be worth looking into some Facebook groups if you are not already a member of some.  You will generally need to ask to join them.  It’s always a good idea to see how the group works and note the rules of the groups. It can be helpful to see how others do things.

So a little taste of how blogging and social media go hand in hand.  My next post will be in December and will look more at the respective platforms.

I hope this has been helpful.

Nicky