Boosting Your Blog

By Sanya Weathers

Last week, after my little TSA post, a number of readers dropped me a line to say that the TSA has a pretty great communication tool – the TSA blog. I did indeed know about it. It’s irreverent, it’s interesting, and it’s jam packed with the kind of information that the head of the TSA does not want on the front page of the website, or accessible to most customers. (For example, Talk To TSA – feedback that is sent to the airport about which you are commenting – is prominently linked on the blog, but not on the main site.)

That brings me to this week’s point: Your blog does not count in your favor unless it’s as widely known as a destination. A single teeny link on the front page of your corporate site satisfies the letter, but not the spirit, of a true promotional campaign.

So how do you make the most of your blog?

–    Featured content. A single hyperlink is not enough to get casual and first time visitors to the blog. Remember, the number one question from a user standpoint is “what’s in it for me?” Answer that question. Feature your blog headlines in a dedicated section or perhaps a ticker feed. Put the first paragraph of your blog entries in a box on your main page.

–    Exclusive opportunities for blog readers. Coupons, extra content, special opportunities, codes, it doesn’t matter. Choosing the right thing for your product is easy if you remember that your main page is to sell the product to people (and to explain what the product is), and to address the most immediate concerns that people have. The blog is for retention.

If you have a product that doesn’t need to care about retention, make your website better and skip the blog.

–    Pictures are worth a thousand links. Having nothing but text is a technique that you use to ensure that only the most interested and engaged customers will be part of your blog community. The casual users you want to attract have their attention snagged by images. Lolcats didn’t take over the world because of the text.

–    Your tone matters. Whether you choose the authoritative, the casual, the silly, the friendly, or the intimate, make your choice a conscious one.

–    Make sharing easy. Stumble, Digg, Twitter, FB, and the billion other bookmark/sharing sites out there all offer teeny little buttons. Use them. (This is where you can go ahead and make fun of me for not practicing what I preach ;)) If you can avoid crazy long URLs, do that too.