SmartBlogs

Who would you rather do business with: a complete stranger, or somebody you already know and trust?

How many people do business with golf buddies, church members, and friends of a friend? 

Let's face it: personal connections can often translate to successful business relationships. Would you really want to give your business to a company you only knew through a sales letter? Or would you feel more comfortable working with someone who came in to meet with you, talk with you, and get to know you? 

You want to make your customers and prospects feel personally important, but you simply don't have the time to personally meet with them each week. If a new strategy works brilliantly for one client, you may want to call up several others and say, "Hey, this worked for X, and I thought it might be helpful to you, too." 

You want to be the kind of business that seeks to establish a relationships with their clients. You want to build trust with prospective clients by taking the time to find out what's important to them, and by answering their questions openly and honestly. 

If you want to build relationships with prospective clients, a blog could be the best thing you ever added to your website.  

With so much digital technology, it's easy for companies and websites to seem impersonal. Customers often move from one faceless website to the next without forming any personal connections. Why should they? No one is reaching out to form personal connections with them. Most websites offer an digital storefront with a "self serve" sign on the counter. 

Blogs can help bridge that gap so you can reach out to each customer personally. Once a week, customers are able to sit down with the CEO or president of a company for an insider's look at the inner workings. It's like an informal consultation and a brief company tour all in one.

On a blog, customers can do more than just read about the latest developments in your company. They can see the thought process that went into those developments. Prospective clients can offer comments, questions, insights, opinions just as if they were sitting in your office.

Communication with clients becomes a two-way conversation rather than one-way preaching.  

Imagine getting a weekly personal meeting with the CEO of a company where he or she opened up a dialogue about company policies or industry trends, and then listened, considered, and commented on the thoughts and suggestions you had. A blog allows you to do this quickly and efficiently, helping you reach a wider audience than ever before.

With this powerful tool, you can form a community with your customers and prospects. You can find out what they think, and listen to what they have to say. You have a forum to personally respond to their comments, both good and bad.

Gain exposure for your company by joining blog community

A blog also allows you to insert your company into the blogging community. It gives you a platform to respond to issues related to your company and industry that other blogs are already talking about. Not only can you increase visibility by commenting on other blogs, you can link back to your company blog in the process to continue the conversation on your own turf.

You get the opportunity to bring all your customers (and potential prospects) into a "room" and build relationships with them with genuine dialogue. You can tell them about new products and services and offer advice, then answer the questions they pose and respond to the comments they have. You can open up discussion on new trends in the industry.

A blog makes your website a roundtable discussion.

Blog communication is also instantaneous. It can be used to get out company information before the press breaks the news, or for damage control if something bad happens.

When damage control becomes an issue for your company, a blog allows you to handle the criticism that comes with grace and professionalism, you'll gain an incredible amount of esteem in your customers' eyes for "personally" responding to these problems.

That's what a blog can do for your customers. But there are even more benefits to you.

Blogs can impress search engines as well as customers. Search engines love new content. Putting fresh, keyword-rich content on your site on a regular basis encourages search engines to grab you, rank you higher, and start sending more traffic.

We've seen blogs show up as some of the highest-traffic pages on websites, bringing in fresh traffic daily from keyword searches.

Xeal help you get the benefits of a blog without the hassle.

Setting up a blog can be hard work, and keeping it updated continuously can tax even the most creative professionals. We can help you get the benefits of a blog without spending every waking moment on those updates. After all, you have a business to run.

We'll help you get things right from the start. Once we have access, you won't have to worry about hosting or installing anything. Our services ensure the blog is set up in the best way to help your website benefit from the content, links and traffic. Even the best blog won't help you if it's invisible to search engines.

Rather than getting bogged down in the details, we'll help you strategize a direction for the blog, and provide targeted SEO content to keep visitors coming back for more.

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