Most of my clients are boot strapping solo entrepreneurs who want their web site to act as a high voltage marketing tool and while their goal may be to change the world one small act at a time, they don’t see that they have the TIME to blog AND run a business.
I recently ran the visitor statistics for one such client. This client was at a function, handing out her business cards, which included her web site url. We had recently migrated her web site to the blog format so she could make frequent additions to her content. She had dutifully done so, though she wasn’t convinced of the value… until I looked at her log files.
The day of the function, her web site had a LOT of activity. This isn’t unusual, but the number of page views per visitor was. Each visitor was literally CONSUMING the information on her web site… excuse me, her BLOG. It came out to each visitor was reading, on average, 10 posts. (Note: Not ONE of these readers left a single comment on the blog!)
Shortly after the event, she began regular contact with someone she met at the event, probably one of those heavy blog content consumers. I probably don’t have to tell you that her enthusiasm for blogging skyrocketed after that conversation. Just like the person who has been faithfully exercising for weeks or months who pulls on a pair of pants that were previously too small to find they now fit… my client’s enthusiasm for blogging skyrocketed.
However, it’s important to note that if she were to look at the "Latest Activity" box in Word Press… she would have been disappointed. See, this client’s potential clients are NOT bloggers by nature. So had she relied on the number of incoming links or the number of comments left as an indicator of her blog’s "success", then she would have been very, very disappointed by the results of her attendance at the event.
I LOVE Word Press Blogs. Word Press blogs can put you in touch with what’s going on with your web site… you can see incoming links and cultivate those incoming links. But be sure to clarify what your blog’s goal is in the beginning. Are you blogging for readers or is your goal to gain trust with potential clients?
Sure, you can possibly achieve both. However, if your target audience are not writing in their own blogs, then the comments can be rather threadbare. Just remember, most visitors won’t recognize your "blog" as a blog. They see it as a web site…and in this client’s case, they found a web site FULL of valuable information.
