Clicks 'n Conversions Blog

When I started this blog discussion two weeks back, I challenged you to dig deep to find your passion. Today, I’ll raise three more questions to help you assess whether your business is ready for the blogosphere. The final three questions will be covered in my blog post on March 16th.

Why bother with blogging? Because nearly half of all IT professionals rely on blogs as a resource when they are researching and comparing potential solutions. Okay, on with the questions.

Blogger readiness assessment question #2: Who is your target audience?
Knowing your readers is paramount because it sets the tone for your blog, determines the language you’ll use to communicate with readers, and helps you achieve secondary goals such as higher SEO rankings and more traffic.

If you want to attract technical folks, for example, feel free to use technical terms in your blog posts.

If your desire is to influence C-level executives, you’ll need to ditch the technical jargon and speak directly to their leadership and business challenges.

If your goal is to attract new clients, you will want to use more general terms when blogging so that people who don’t yet know the “industry lingo” will find you through search engines.

One thing I recommend you do before you start blogging is to create a list of target keywords and phrases to incorporate in blog posts. Over time, your repeated use of the keywords will lead to better search engine rankings, and they will help keep your blogging posts on topic.

Blogger readiness assessment question #3: What will you blog about?
Once you have a clear understanding as to why you want to blog and the audience you want to attract, it’s time to choose a subject (or theme) that interests you and your target readers.

If you pick a topic that is too broad or too narrow, you’ll either run out of ideas for new content or your posts will be all over the map. Either way, you’ll find it hard to attract a steady readership.

Likewise, avoid the urge to use your blog as an advertising platform. Remember, IT buyers visit blogs to learn — not to be sold to — so you’ll be far more successful if you use your blog to educate, discuss industry news and trends, and encourage an open exchange of ideas and opinions.

Your blog should be bigger than you or your company. Write for your readers’ benefit, not for yours.

Blogger readiness assessment question #4: How will you measure success?
The majority of corporate bloggers surveyed for Technorati’s “State of the Blogosphere 2009” measure success by counting unique visitors, reader comments, incoming links, and RSS subscribers. While these statistics are valuable, I contend they will not give you the entire picture when it comes to evaluating the impact that you are making with the blog.

You’ll also want to monitor what people are saying about you outside of the blog. Incoming links provide hints, but some people will talk about you without linking back.

Encourage discussions outside the blog by giving readers sociable links they can click when they Digg something you say. Then, monitor the discussions by searching social networking sites and search engines, or use a social monitoring tool like Social Mention. It sounds time consuming, but most sites have alert capabilities to automate this work.

Some bloggers also measure success by tracking the connections they build on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook. If this is one of your objectives, encourage this behavior in your blog by giving readers quick connection links to these sites.

Of course, we all wish people would comment on our posts, but don’t be discouraged if week after week you see zero comments. Many readers prefer to remain anonymous. If they like what they read, they’ll send you an e-mail directly, or share it with others via the sociable links you include in your blog.

Finally, don’t expect miracles over night. Like any good PR activity, you need to remain patient, persistent, and consistent with your blogging. Give the blog at least nine months before you decide if it’s worth it to continue.