Articles - BLOGS

Blogs – How Online Journals can Drive Sales

Blogs are online journals or logs. The name is short for web logs. Like many of the best features of the internet, they began as a method of personal expression – a chance to state your opinion, talk about your life and share photos. It wasn’t long before numerous ‘commentary’ blog sites became popular in the fields of literature, cinema, food and politics. As blogs in this category reached a global market the true potential of this tool was realized. A blog encourages comments and interaction with your audience – it encourages a personal involvement which in turn encourages sales and repeat customers.

A blog can allow you to reach out to your audience in a more personal way. It has been proven that consumers prefer to buy from vendors they know personally. Blogs give you a unique opportunity to let your customers get to know you. The most successful professional blogs revolve around the passions of the business – a bicycle parts shop might blog about the Tour de France for example. The key is to fill your blog with posts that will be of interest to the customers you hope to attract. If you are selling organic fruit there is nothing to be gained by blogging about motorcycle races for example.

Another great thing about blogs is that they allow you to post pictures and links to other sites. You can create an article about a product, insert photos of the item and include links that will take visitors straight to the sales page. It is best to keep the language of a blog entry personal – people do not want to be ‘sold’, they prefer to feel as if they are ‘gathering information’ in order to make a decision. Your blog entries should approach subjects that way – give out information, trivia, personal experience etc. If the entries are well written and interesting in their own right they will drive sales.

Blogs are a great place to ‘show off’ the unique features of your product or your business. One word of caution – for a blog to effectively drive sales you will want to update it regularly – at a minimum of once weekly. If you cannot commit to regular updates then it is not advised that you start a blog. A blog is one way that consumers can ‘get to know’ the vendors that are providing their goods and since it is proven that customers buy more from people they ‘know’ this can only be a good thing.