Business blogs can be a powerful tool for marketing your business and establishing new customer relationships. A business blog can also help you to increase your earnings through your website as well as indirectly through several other methods. This post examines some of the ways you can accomplish this with your business blog.

Showcasing Your Products and Services

Your business blog can be a great tool for showing off the products and services you have to offer. Customers may not be aware of everything you have to offer, and your blog presents an opportunity to show them how they could benefit from your offerings.

You don’t have to directly market your products in order to convey their value. You can also provide useful articles that provide information and advice on how to use your products effectively, and as a result you will be introducing customers to your services and products. By providing this information in a helpful manner, they aren’t obligated to use your services, but once they have read through your articles and see the value, they will understand the value of your products and services on a more intimate level.

Building Your Email Lists

Communicating with your customers through your business blog is a great way to reach out, but establishing an email newsletter can be even better. A newsletter lets you communicate with customers directly to their inbox – offering updates, or special offers and discounts. While you will often want to directly market your services, it can be more effective to offer advice, tips, and useful information and include a promotion alongside this information. Your email subscribers are already interested in your business, so you just need to use that opportunity to present an offer.

So how does your business blog help to grow your email list? Include a subscription form on your blog that makes it easy for people to sign up. Often, people won’t just subscribe without some incentive, so make it worth their time. Offer free content, discounts or exclusive material that they can only acquire by signing up.

Earn Income Through Affiliates

In addition to blogging about your own products and services, it’s also possible to bring in some additional income by taking part in an affiliate program that offers related products and services. Affiliate programs typically provide a special link for you to promote, and every time someone clicks that link and makes a purchase you earn a percentage of the sale.
There are many affiliate networks out there, and it’s important to choose one that is a good fit for your business. Here are a few things to look out for:

  1. Find an established, reliable and trustworthy affiliate network.
  2. Look for affiliate networks with a track record of success, and who make payments on time every time.
  3. Find affiliate networks that offer products and services which are a good fit for your business.
  4. Find products and services that are unique and up-to-date. If everybody in the world is already trying to sell it, the market may already be saturated.

Advertising Income

Advertising can be one of the most effective ways to bring additional income in through your business blog. It usually takes very little effort to get up and running, has almost zero maintenance requirements, and when ads are placed appropriately can result in some very decent earnings.

PPC networks like Google AdWords makes the process dead-simple. Sign up, get your ad code, and place it on your website. There are even some plugins out there for blog systems like WordPress that can simplify the process even more.
Advertisers typically bid on the ad spots that are most relevant for their products and services. If your website received a fair amount of traffic, and you place the ads in a visible but unobtrusive manner, you can bring substantial additional income in from your blog.

In the end, your priority should still be to provide value to your readers. If you fail to do that, or if you go too far in placing ads and affiliate links on your blog, you will drive your readers away. Experiment to find the right balance that keeps your readership growing and maximizes your blog’s earning potential.