Why blogs can be so amazingly effective and how to make them work for you
Blogs can be one of the most effective ways of bringing in customers that exists. And yet most companies don’t run them – largely on the grounds that they don’t quite understand how and why it all works. Worse, some companies that do run blogs manage to run them without any success, because they make basic mistakes in the operation of the blog.
Two years ago I decided to experiment with a blog, starting absolutely from scratch, not writing about direct mail or email marketing, not writing about education, in fact not writing in an area where anyone knew anything about me, and not in any way trading on the name Hamilton House.
In short I started as an absolutely anonymous writer.
In January 2008 (my first month of running the blog) I had 2,000 different readers visit the blog site. In January 2009 I had 60,000 individual readers on the site. And in January 2010 I had 170,000 individual readers on the site. (The measurement of these numbers is quite strict and I am happy to discuss the parameters used – give me a call).
So, where did all these people come from? Or put another way, how can you get this level of readership to your site?
1. People read the blog because you tell them to
If you are writing a blog it makes sense to email all your customers and potential customers to tell them about it. Indeed some firms quite reasonably send copies of the blog occasionally to their potential customers as a way of drawing them in. Obviously the blog has to be interesting to these people, but if it is, then you start by making your own audience.
2. People read the blog because they find it on an accumulator site – such as UK Education News
If you are working with HHM then your blog can be listed on www.UKEducationNews.co.uk each time you run a new story. It can be done totally automatically – and can bring in a continuous supply of new readers, who, if they like what they see, can return time and time again. At the moment the average number of stories read by each visitor to the UK Ed News site is a staggering eight. Try the site and see how you get stuck on it!
3. People read the blog because of searching on Google
Blog articles get listed on Google and other search engines, so when someone does a search and picks up a phrase that is on your blog, they come and find the blog – and from there find your main website or give you a call. The HHM site www.blog.schools.co.uk which does nothing but run adverts for our clients now gets around 28,000 individual readers on the site each month. That means that each month the average article on the site gets 70 reads from people – and that goes on month after month after month.
Remember also that those people reading the articles are people who have searched for the specific topic so they are already interested. And that number is growing month by month. (People who just come to the site briefly and then never return are considered to be there by mistake and so are not counted.)
If you have not had an article on www.blog.schools.co.uk do give me a call to talk about it.
4. People forward the blog to friends
This takes a while to get going but once people start looking forward to your blog each day or each week then they start passing the message on. On our test blog this did take about 10 months to start happening, but now, two years on, it is a major reason for our continuing growth. The more readers you have, the more people they are likely to tell.
5. Other sites start picking up on the blog
Again this can take time but once it happens the numbers rise. After a year we started being picked up by other sites. After two years we have about half a dozen sites a day referring to us and giving us links – which of course helps take the site up the rankings and helps get more readers.
So why doesn’t everyone do it?
Because although you can get a readership fairly quickly it takes a little time to set up the blog and get going properly. Also it takes time to write it… And it takes a bit of writing skill too, to entertain the customer and keep him or her returning. The key element, incidentally, is the headline of each blog, and it is here that many people fall down.
If you would like to talk about blogs I am happy to discuss them with you – call me on 01536 399 013. There’s no obligation in calling, but if you are interested, Hamilton House can write the blog and/or, administer the site for you. Or you can simply buy into our www.blog.schools.co.uk site, or get listings on www.ukeducationnews.co.uk
Last point, just in case you are interested, the blog with 170,000 readers a month is at www.blog.emiratesstadium.info
But be warned, it has nothing to do with teaching and learning, and is written for a very different audience from that which you may wish to reach.