Blogger Profit

Posts Tagged ‘Dilemma’

It’s well known that the search engines are suckers for fresh content. Sites that are updated regularly fare better than those that remain static over long periods of time. This has always posed a problem for us store owners, because simply adding a few new products each month just isn’t going to suffice in competitive markets. Nor is shuffling the featured products around on our home pages every now and again!

Thankfully blogging goes a long way toward solving this dilemma. Get into the habit of making frequent, regular posts to a blog and sites soon take on that fresh, organic quality the search engines love.

Of course, as well as helping rankings, blogs are also great way of interacting with clients. Sharing views and news with visitors and allowing them to comment on posts creates a sense of community around a store. This does wonders for conversion rates.

So blogs and ecommerce are a healthy combination – but what about the writing itself? It’s vital that a blog is kept ticking over but posting fresh material every few days can soon become taxing! So here a few tips and ideas for when you run out of inspiration.

1.Product news.

The arrival of new product lines should always be announced on your blog. If nothing else it provides an ideal opportunity to get keywords into action, so use them in the titles of your posts as well as the body. Similarly you can also use your blog to inform customers when a particular item is back in stock.

2.Additional product reviews

Not everyone likes long copy and you may prefer to keep your actual store’s product descriptions short and to the point. But your blog provides an ideal opportunity to pull out all the stops for the more obsessive customer. Add extra photos, tell anecdotes – use all that extra space to your advantage. With a little care and attention you can nail plenty of keyword variations.

3.Apologies

Whenever there’s a problem with your store or something goes wrong, address in it your blog. Say sorry if necessary. Customers will appreciate your honesty!

4.The future

Good websites are always a work in progress and you should keep your customers informed of any changes on the horizon. So if you are planning on offering another payment method in a few months, talk about it. Say why you’re doing it and when it will happen.

5.We’re great!

Create a a blog category exclusively for your customer testimonials. Then whenever you receive a complimentary email, ask the customer if you can post it. You should be able to collect a nice backlog of such comments for days when you don’t have any news. Then you can just post a testimonial to keep the spiders happy! Of course, this tactic also serves a double purpose in that you’ll soon have a fully functioning testimonial page which you can link to from the main site.

6.Sales and promotions.

Offering any discounts this week? Don’t just tell your newsletter subscribers, post it.

7.Happy holidays!

There are countless different festivals, holy days and holidays celebrated at different times throughout the year. Mention them. Your customers may be of various nationalities and religious persuasions so don’t limit yourself to Happy Christmas and Happy Halloween!

8.News close to home.

You should never approach your store’s blog as a personal diary. After all your customers don’t want to hear about what you had for breakfast. But that doesn’t mean that you can’t mention momentous or life changing events. Maybe a member of your staff is getting married or expecting a baby, for example. Depending on the overall personality of your store this may not be something that you’d like to do, but in the right circumstances mentioning this kind of news can endear you to your customers very effectively. Everybody likes to be reassured that they are dealing with 3 dimensional people, not just a faceless money making machine. Just don’t overdo it.

9.Current bestsellers.

If a particular product is really popular, it’s worth mentioning for two reasons. Firstly it can create a sense of urgency in your customers if they think that stocks may be getting low. Secondly, if a lot of people are buying a certain product there are probably a lot of people searching for it as well. When you’ve got a hot keyword, pepper a post with it and then feed it to the spiders!

New blog writers everywhere are faced with a serious dilemma when they first reach the Internet and must decide which blogging platform is best for their new website. There are actually dozens of options on the market, ranging from the basic blog settings of the social networks to the self-hosted open sources software solutions.

However, for most new bloggers and those who don’t want to pay for their blog, the choice boils down to one of two websites: Blogger and WordPress. These two services have become synonymous in recent years with the blogging phenomenon, making up a massive percentage of the Internet’s most popular blogs. For that reason, there has been a bit of discussion over which service is better.

Provided here is a solid answer to that question once and for all, 7 reasons why Blogger is in fact better than WordPress. These comparisons relate to the free accounts available from both Blogger and WordPress.

Integrated Login with Your Google Account

With the ability to easily connect all of your Google accounts, this is a big plus for Blogger. Many of the most useful features for a website are offered by Google, including AdSense, AdWords, and Webmaster tools for Google indexing. Instead of adding code into your templates, something that can quickly become confusing and result in broken websites, Blogger allows you to simply click a button and integrate AdSense or banners into your site.

This allows you to use the same login information for all Google services and that sets Blogger a few steps ahead. WordPress is an open sources solution, meaning that all extra services must be manually integrated into your blog after you have signed up for your account.

Backed up by Google

Along the same lines, Blogger has the backing of the largest and most powerful Internet Company in the world. For some this might seem like a negative, but it means the most money and development time can be placed into creating new features for Blogger that WordPress may need to wait for. Historically, features such as widgets, add-ons, and templates have been enhanced first by Blogger. WordPress is usually a step or two behind the curve. For the best features as they are developed, Blogger is the winner.

Change Visual Appearance and Code of Templates

Blogger’s options for making changes to the visual composition of your blog are numerous and easy to use, something that WordPress has had problems maintaining in the past. In Blogger, there are a number of pre-built templates as well as thousands more available from any number of websites. Simply copy and paste them into your blog’s template page and you have a new look. Additionally, the style sheets and HTML code for your template (if you are willing to do so) can easily be changed and enhanced to suit your specific needs.

Indexing Time

Whether it is because of the link with Google or because of the sheer volume of Blogger blogs, your posts will be indexed in the Search Engines much quicker with Blogger. Usually within a few hours of posting your newest page will appear, allowing you to receive the most traffic as quickly as possible. This is especially important as most blogs strive to talk about the newest and most relevant news as it breaks. If that news does not index for two days, it will already be old when people start to read your posts.

Ease of Use

Blogger is truly a plug and play design for a new blog owner. Signing up takes seconds, allowing users to use their Google login and asking only for a few basic pieces of information such as blog title and description. From there, blog posts can be typed up and entered with two or three clicks and are automatically indexed. For newcomers to the blogosphere especially, Blogger is the best choice when it comes to ease of use.

Integration of Multiple Accounts

Blogger makes it easy to view all of your blogs via a dashboard feature that links directly to your Google login. When you login, all of your blogs will display, with one-click options to post, edit, or alter posts. The number of blogs and accounts available is nearly endless and makes blogging on multiple topics easier than ever.

Massive Blogging Network

Because Blogger is the first stop for many new bloggers, it is also among the largest blogging networks in the world. The millions of blogs already created in Blogger are helpful to the new member as well because of how Google has integrated their search features into the site. Not only can visitors search Blogger blogs via the search bar at the top of the page, they can click “random” or “next blog” to visit a different Blogger blog. This increases your exposure by directly connecting you with existing blogs. And if you decide to hide this feature, you can do that too in Blogger.

Ultimately, Blogger is an ideal solution for anyone who is just starting their first blog. It is also a great platform for those who are serious about blogging, but do not want to hire a technician to set them up and make regular adjustments to their blog. It is easy to use, quick to start, and offers a host of features that the free WordPress blog and its other competitors do not.