These days, many professionals are looking to build a blog community to develop their reputation, uncover new business opportunities and grow revenues. What this comes down to is using a blog to build meaningful business relationships.
People think the best way to grow their blog is to simply focus on driving more traffic there. So they spend lots of time and effort on:
- SEO keyword research and tools
- Writing posts littered with keywords to pull in the most search visitors
- Dreaming up a promotion to make a post catch fire (a long shot at best)
But what if a post goes viral, driving big traffic to your blog for the day? Doesn't that help build your community?
Bloggers with this experience report that the spike in daily traffic usually does not create any big surge in comments--and almost never lands new subscribers.
The secret? Return visitors!
Now take a look at the stats for your blog's return visitors--people who are attracted to your blog and engaged with it. They're starting a relationship with you. They can help you grow naturally and can make a real difference to your business.
To keep visitors coming back:
- Strive for unique content with either new info or a fresh look at something they already know
- Don't worry about the popular keywords
- Engage right away with people who comment
- Connect personally with bloggers and commenters--email them, call them, meet them face to face
Slow and steady wins the race
This approach keeps track of return visitors on a daily basis and focuses on driving up that number over time. It gets you thinking about creating the better content and value-added efforts that build a stronger community.
Taking this slow and steady approach to developing your blog community eventually gets you to that "tipping point," where so many people and their friends are spreading the word about your blog that ALL your numbers begin heading up. The results can be dramatic.
To use a blog to create meaningful business relationships, make return visitors your first priority. There are no shortcuts--build your blog community just like you built your customer base---one connection, one relationship, one referral at a time.... Enjoy a great month!
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