Improving Business Blog Performance

Make your Blog work for your business
Without doubt Blogs require two things commitment and time. Due to this it is an absolute necessity your Blog provides tangible benefits for your business.
To help you improve the performance of your business Blog I reviewed some performance tips, other than the standard keyword research and link building. I’m sure the majority of Bloggers do not need to be reminded of the importance of these elements.
Blog Performance Tips
Page Views: Every Blogger wants to keep the attention of their visitor for as long as possible and in most cases this requires visitors to view numerous pages. There are a few things you can do to keep visitors on your Blog such as:
Interlink relevant Blog posts with anchor text. In general as the content gets older and slips further and further into the archives, the page views of these posts decreases. Valuable content exists within these posts, it’s a shame to see it go to waste. Link to your older content.
Revise the content of older Blog Posts and include links to relevant new Posts. Keep the linking cycle happening.
At the end of each Blog Post provide a list of relevant Blog Posts your visitors may be interested in. Alternatively Wordpress has a couple of plug-ins which will do this for you one being Arkayne.
Use plugs-ins to show the most commented and most popular posts, a good plug-in for this is PostRank
Spread the word: In many cases Blog Posts are promoted via Social Media sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin. Don’t forget the search engines and other options.
Set up Ping Service such as Ping-o-matic to notify Search Engines and the Blogosphere of Blog Updates and new posts.
Use the Wordpress plug-in Google XML Sitemap generator to auto generate site maps and notify Search Engines of new content.
Comments: Search Engines consider comments important, the more comments the better, but of course in the land of the web nothing is straight forward. Statistics can always be manipulated but one that comes across as believable it 93% of Blog readers don’t comment. So when you do get comments take notice and interact.
Moderate your comments: Comments must be moderated, otherwise you will receive a phenomenal amount of comment spam. Set up Aksimet Wordpress
When moderating comments ensure the comment adds value to the blog post and click the link to ensure the site meets with your expectations for quality. The commenter’s of your Blog Post do reflect on your sites authority and professionalism.
Comments can often be increased by asking relevant questions at the end of the post which encourages visitors to state their opinions.
Business Blogs are landing pages: You never know where a visitor will land on your web site or Blog and therefore, consideration must be given to how these visitors will convert to sales or leads for the sales team.
What do you want your Blog visitor to do? Ensure a call to action is made encouraging visitors to complete the required action.
Let the visitor know who you are. Clearly identifying your business, contact details helps to create a feeling of confidence from your visitors. All too often business contact details are difficult to find on the Blogs which ultimately affects business conversions.
Clearly labeled navigation, which enables visitors to easily access additional important information on your web site will increase conversions and ROI of your Blogging initiatives.
The Last Word
Your Blog is an important business tool. Blog posting as part of your business marketing strategy is one of the best ways to connect and interact with your current and potential clients and customers. All of the above items are basic, easy to do tasks which will increase your Blogs business performance and ROI.
Has your companies Blogging Program worked for your company? If not what tactics and strategies have you implemented to improve performance?
About The Author
Pete Hollier is an Information Scientist, and possesses a Bachelors Degree in Information Science. Pete is SeoWizardry’s owner and principal Web Site Performance Consultant, using a holistic approach to assist businesses to leverage the power of the Internet to improve overall business performance.