While doing some online networking the other day Alan posed a good question regarding generating traffic for his business blog. It’s a common point of confusion with business owners, so for your benefit here’s the question and answer.

Business Blogging Question:

Do you consider blogexplosion/blogazoo/clicker to be quality traffic? From my understanding those visitors are only there to get points to get you to visit their blog. What’s the best way to get targeted traffic to my blog if it’s to promote my business?

Appreciate your coaching advice!

Alan

The Business Coaches Answer:

Aloha Alan,

Your understanding is dead on. Traffic from any type of “exhange” is going to be completely un-targeted. That means lots of eyeballs, but very few qualified prospects from your ideal target audience. This does not make for a very efficient use of your or any employee’s time.

One caveat to mention on un-qualified traffic is if a business person was providing a generic product/service that could appeal to just about anyone. (i.e.: diet, weight loss, etc.) Then unqualified traffic COULD be worth some time. Although we’d advise it NOT be your own time. Generating traffic though exchanges would be a great task to outsource at $5.00 - $10.00 per hour max, or have an intern do.

With that said, understand the vast majority of people are not using blog exchanges to find you or your business. And the same is true for blog specific search engines (like Ice Rocket or Technorati.) They’re going to Google and Yahoo and MSN, and doing searches. So getting top rankings in the organic searches for your targeted keywords should be your primary focus if large amounts of targeted traffic is what you’re using your business blog for.

When you can consistently be in the top 20 of organic search results for strategically selected keywords — you will get the highly targeted traffic you’re after. That’s where your most valuable time should be spent.

Another caveat HERE is…. if you’re in a technology field, then those types of readers will be more familiar with blog specific search engines. That means you’d want to split your time proportionally between gaining organic results in regular search engines and top rankings in blog specific search engines. That means more commenting and interaction with other bloggers.

The most important point on traffic — conversion!

Targeted traffic is great, but what are you directing those visitors to do when they get to your business blog? This is where a lot of business people go wrong in listening to the advice of blogging evangelists in that they completely forget about the proven rules of marketing.

Contrary to what you may have heard, you can proactively market with your business blog. Marketing, blogs, and business are an excellent promotional blend. To be successful just means using influence and persuasion instead of interruption or mass media style marketing.

It’s true that a well planned business blog is a powerful tool for building relationships, opening a dialog, and developing trust with your audience. But you still need to influence those visitors to take the next step in developing a relationship with you. A blog on it’s own is not enough to do that.

At the very least a good starting point is adding a free download offer in the visual hot zone (upper left corner) of your business blog. An offer for something that will benefit a visitor from your target audience. And keep in mind that an offer to sign up for a “newsletter” is not going to be sufficient incentive for people to hand over even their first name and email address.

Add that registration incentive and that will take care of the most important step in moving strangers > friends > customers > raving fans.

Best of luck Alan, enjoy your complimentary copy of Business Blogging 101, and email us if you’d like more help using New Media to market your business.

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Deborah Micek is a Business Acceleration Coach. She and her partner have over 8000 hours of experience helping entrepreneurs like you get the profits, performance, and lifestyle you want from your business. She’s a published author (Secrets Of Online Persuasion,) a weekly columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin, and professional speaker.You can reach Deborah directly via [communicationcoach@gmail.com].