What Is Blog Marketing?

WHAT IS BLOG  MARKETING?

As you may know from browsing the web, or conducting research using the internet, there is an abundance of information available on the internet.  While this makes the web a great resource, it also makes it extremely competitive for those individuals and businesses seeking to make money from a blog. 

Blog marketing encompasses two areas; making your blog more accessible and easy to find (i.e. getting it to the top of the search engines), and optimizing your blog in order to publicize and/or advertise for the purpose of making a profit from the blog.  

While the standard definition of blog marketing only deals with the latter part of this definition, it is hardly useful to have advertisements and reviews on your blog if no one is reading it.  As such, we will also address optimizing the traffic to your blog.  That is - assuming that you actually want traffic to your blog in the first place!  (Yes, that was just me having some fun with you)...

REASONS TO ENGAGE IN BLOG MARKETING

For some, blogging is simply a means of expression, of getting their thoughts out, and there is very little concern as to whether or not they are making money or whether or not there is a large audience.  

For others, blogs are a means of building a business and making money to support their blog - or possibly even their lifestyle.  Possibly.  For the latter group, blog marketing is extremely important.  Without blog marketing, it is virtually impossible to make any money at all.  Some of the reasons for blog marketing are as follows:


Building Your Brand:

When you go out to purchase a new computer what is it that you look for?  How likely are you to purchase a computer from a company you’ve never heard of?  There is a reason why companies like Apple and Sony sell more product than their competitors.  

These companies are household names as they have built up their brand and have become trusted names in electronics.  Your goal as a blog owner is to build your brand and become a trusted name in your chosen field.  Blog marketing can help in this area. 

When building your brand, be sure you’re posting useful information..  While some bloggers like to go by a philosophy of quantity is best, those seeking to build their brand should subscribe to quality over quantity.  Although it is important to regularly post to your blog (i.e. once or twice per week or more if you like), your posts should be well-written, informative, and reliable.   

And even more importantly, you, yourself, should get thorough enjoyment out of writing them.  The more people trust your brand, the more they ultimately trust you, then the more times they will visit, and the more they will recommend your blog to others.  

Believe me, if you are not enjoying what you are writing about, if it is a tiring thing at best and an awful chore at worst, people will feel it across the screen.  Trust me.  You can monitor how well your blog is growing by checking how many daily visits your blog gets.    


Blogs are Low-Cost Options:

A blog is low cost to set up which makes it very appealing.  Most other advertising and monetizing methods in business cost a great deal more money than blogging.  The only real money involved in setting up a blog is purchasing the web space, and even that is optional.  

There are free blog hosting services available.  Most professional bloggers will recommend that you purchase your own space so that you have a more professional web address, yet it is possible to use (or even just start out with) a free service. 

The other cost of blogging doesn’t involve money, but rather it involves your time.  This is where the real cost of blogging lies.  As long as you have the time to dedicate to setting up, maintaining, and updating your blog - and so long as you maintain the passion for keeping your blog going - you can keep it up and going for fairly cheap (to free). 


Easy Access to the General Public:

A great portion of the world population uses the internet on a regular basis, so by setting up and using a blog, you’re setting yourself up to have access to this entire audience.  What other form of business promotion gives you access to such a large audience all at the same time?  

You’d have to put ads in a number of magazines or newspapers, and billboards across the world to have the same kind of access to the public that blogging gives you.  I know at this stage of the game, this is common knowledge within blogging and online marketing circles.  

However, the entire reason I started this blog is because even as I write this, I know a good number of people with incredible writing talent, cooking talent, coaching talent, even ones who have written an incredible book already (or two!) ... and are nervous about starting themselves up online.  

Or, they have themselves secured in a blog (or two.  or three.  heck, maybe more like the equivalent of eggs to a carton), and have done nothing with them.  Hopefully, Delight In Your Design will assist with offering some comprehensive tools for anyone to get started!


Monetization Opportunities:

Whether you’re looking to get the word out on your brand or business, or simply get news and information to your clientele, blogs offer a number of ways to make money.  This unique opportunity is one reason why blogs have become so popular.  

Just like the blog itself, one of the biggest perks about this opportunity is that it costs very little to nothing in order to monetize your blog and benefit from the large scale audience that the internet has to offer.  

The biggest cost of monetizing a blog is the time you’ll need to put into your blog in order to drive traffic to it.  I will cover some of these in my next post.