A successful business blog is a great marketing and communications asset.
It’s no surprise then, that so many business owners start blogging. However, many of them stop blogging after a few months, because they have not seen the kind of results they had hoped for.
It’s like a farmer planting her crops and then trying to harvest them too soon. The farmer may have planted the crops correctly and tended the soil perfectly, but her crops might take 6 months or more before they’re ready for harvesting.
Building a blog that generates regular sales, leads or opportunities for your business often takes up to a year or more. Pulling the plug on a blog after just a few months is like giving up on your crops before your seeds had a chance to grow.
Blog development takes time
My first blog post here was read by just a handful of people on the day it was published. Over the next 2 years, I worked hard to make Jims Marketing Blog as valuable as I possibly could. I wrote several hundred blog posts, replied to comments, improved the blog design and marketed it to new readers.
Why? Over the past 12-months alone, this blog has repaid me, by generating over £100,000 in profitable, new business. Had I stopped after the first few months, because I only had a relatively small number of readers, none of this would have happened and I would have missed what’s become one of the most fun elements of my business too!
Numbers are less important than quality, but you do still need the numbers.
How many readers do YOU need?
That’s easy. You need enough targeted visitors to your blog each week or month, in order to provide you with a steady, predictable stream of high quality sales or business leads. Now, in some industries, that may be 5,000 a day. In most industries you will need nothing like that many! Lots of successful business bloggers do amazingly well with 500 unique visitors a day and others with half that number!
To get you from wherever you are right now, to that magical place, aim for developing a growing, targeted readership, through providing useful, focused content and embracing a good Internet marketing strategy.
The bottom line: Don’t get disheartened by comparing your visitor numbers with anyone else and allow your blog the time it needs in order to grow. If you are looking for a quick fix, business blogging is probably not for you. However, if you are looking for a way to build an amazingly powerful marketing and communications asset in the medium to longer-term, I suggest you embrace blogging.
What have your experiences been of starting or growing a business blog? I would really love to hear your feedback!
Let’s work together and grow your business. To find out more click here!
The small business owners I work with enjoy far more sales, attract better clients and grow amazing businesses.
If you want the same, here’s exactly how it happens.