winterg1979: Your Blog is Your Mothership

Your Blog is Your Mothership: "

typing Yesterday, I read the “Unconventional Guide to the Social Web,” and although I found a lot of useful information in it, one quote has stuck with me since reading it: “Your blog is your mothership. Don’t neglect it for lesser tools.”

This is an important thing to keep in mind when marketing your business online. There are tons of ways to build a web presence, including a variety of social media and networking sites, but nothing is as important as your blog.

Maintained correctly, your blog is the one tool that will get you the most traffic, and it’s the tool over which you have the most control. If you set out with the intention of posting three to five times per week, within a year, you will begin seeing significant activity around your site. Within two to three years, you could easily be an authority in your particular niche.

So, how can you make sure that you don’t neglect your blog (or your “mothership”)?

Spend time there. Visit your site or blog frequently (ideally, several times per day). This helps you stay connected with your vision for your business, and it also helps you stay in tune with the usability of your site, as well as find ways to improve it.

Keep it updated.It’s very easy to allow a month to go by without posting a single blog entry. Naturally, the frequency of your posts will depend on a number of factors, most important being your own goals for your site, but you should post on a regular and consistent schedule so that your site content remains fresh.

Engage your audience. Ask questions, make thought-provoking posts, and most importantly, monitor the comments on your blog. If someone replies to one of your posts, take the time to respond, and if you really want to impress the person, email him or her with a thoughtful “thank you for following” message.

Give it some thought. Don’t just post “filler content” to make an arbitrary quota. Really think about what your audience wants to hear. What do they want to know more about? How can you help them? Find ways to provide greater value for your readers. You’ll know you’re providing benefit when you hear clients and customers say things like, “I’m trying that idea you mentioned on your blog.”

Find ways to improve. Organize your archives a little better, add links to your social networking profiles, or spruce up your “About” page. Find ways to regularly improve your site, making it more visually appealing and more user-friendly.

Your blog is the most direct line to you and your business. It’s what new followers and visitors read to determine if you’re someone they’d like to get to know better or if you can provide value to their lives or businesses. Don’t neglect it. Consider it to be your “mothership” and take care of it as such.

In what ways do you take care of your blog? How do you make sure that it represents you in the best light possible to visitors of your site?

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