Marketing 101: The Danger of Desperation

 There are certain rules which absolutely must be followed at all times when planning and implementing a marketing strategy. One of the most important of all is – ensure you never come across as desperate.

It’s one of the things far too many entrepreneurs seem to forget from time to time. Which is, that anything that comes across as desperate or needy comes across as extremely unappealing.

 

You know the kind of marketing messages yourself – those where the company seems to be practically begging you to do business with them. Dignity goes out of the window and so does any focus on how you set to gain from any kind of purchase or transaction. Instead, they are practically on their knees and demonstrating the kind of desperation that comes across as woeful.

Which begs the question – what can you do to ensure that you avoid coming across as desperate at all times?

The answer – be particularly careful during times of financial stress, or when your business isn’t performing particularly well. It’s during these times that you are instinctively most likely to cross the line into desperation, usually without even realizing so. What’s more, it’s worth focusing on the kinds of measures that paint the exact opposite picture to that of desperation.

The following represent a good place to start:

1. Prove your expertise

The simple fact of the matter is that if you are genuinely an expert in your field and offering something of true value, you shouldn’t have to beg people to use or buy it. This means you may need to consider how much time and effort you are investing in establishing and enhancing your authority and expertise. By getting people to recognise and trust you, it’s no longer necessary to desperately plead for their time and attention. Make no mistake about it – desperation is a surefire way of demonstrating your lack of expertise, authority and professionalism in the field.

2. Make a solid and valid offer

Make no mistake about it – attempting to sell something to a customer just because it’s cheap isn’t a good way of establishing authority or reputation. When you think about it, it’s not as if the most successful companies in the world sell the very best products in the world for low prices. Nor do they spend their time attempting to convince customers that they need to buy their products. If anything, they often make it clear and apparent that their products are designed for discerning audiences – not for everyone. Which is pretty much the exact opposite of desperation once again. It’s a case of showing your target audience your unique selling point, what it is about your products/services that holds value and why they are worth paying a fair price for. You are pushing the value and appeal of what it is you are selling, not just the fact that you are selling something cheaply.

3. Have a strong marketing plan

Last but not least, mistakes tend to be made in the marketing capacity when businesses stray from their marketing plans. That or have no marketing plans to speak of whatsoever to follow in the first place. Just a service you start making things up as you go along, chances are it will be pretty evident to your target audience that this is the case. Develop a strong marketing plan and feel free to tweak it along the way, but ensure you stick with its primary principles as you progress.

Why PPC and SEO Campaigns Should Be Run Simultaneously

It is common to come across a debate regarding which is better – PPC or SEO. In reality, you can do with bringing both of them into your marketing strategy.

But the question is still there – which one should you prioritise? For some businesses, it is a case of bringing an SEO marketing strategy underway, wait some time until it starts generating traffic and then move on to PPC. For other companies, it is the other way around.

Both PPC and SEO have the potential to generate Internet traffic in generous volumes. Nonetheless, anyone trying to maximise their ROI may want to consider running both SEO and PPC campaigns at the same time.

Here is why:

SEO Will Take Time

For starters, even an outstanding SEO strategy takes time to reach fruition. What is more, it’s fundamentally impossible to predict how much time it will take for an SEO strategy to reach a certain result. It will simply take as long as it takes. Meanwhile, there might be a little to no difference when it comes to the traffic your website is able to pull in.

By contrast, PPC is about immediate impact when you happen to need it most. Rather than sitting and waiting to see what happens, your PPC ads will be published both instantly and prominently. While your SEO marketing strategy is working hard to get the job done, your PPC ads deliver a steady and strong stream of traffic.

Paid Ads Will Appear More Prominently

No matter how great your SEO strategy is, you will always play second fiddle to the paid ads. In fact, you are unlikely to reach the top of the search rankings for the most popular keywords. It is important to bear in mind that above all else, Google is out there to make money – that’s a fact. This is precisely why Google gives those businesses who hand over cash priority in the search result listings.

With a PPC marketing campaign, you have the chance to position your ads at the very top of the search results page. If the best you are managing so far with your SEO campaign is tenth position, you may find PPC ads very useful for boosting the traffic to your page. That is also something that can help your SEO marketing strategy – Google considers page hits and visitor numbers into its indexation algorithms. So again, a combination of PPC and SEO wins the day.

Lessons Learned

Lastly, PPC campaigns could be used to learn important lessons for your SEO strategy, and vice versa. By monitoring their respective progress, you will tap into a world of invaluable data for the improvement of both campaigns.

Especially when it comes to keywords data and analytics, a PPC campaign could be worth its weight in gold. Google usually reserves the most valuable insights and data for those businesses willing to pay for it. Therefore, your PPC ads can teach you more about your business audience than your SEO strategy alone.

Summer 2019 - Online Marketing Statistics

The 2019 summer is already proving to be a fascinating period in the world of web marketing statistics. Or at least, fascinating if you are keeping up with the major topics like artificial intelligence, influencer marketing and the power of online video.

So here is a short summary of just a few revealing statistics from the past weeks that attracted our attention.

AI marketing is set to explode by 2022

A recent study by Forbes Insights and Quantcast suggests that online markets worldwide are planning significant investments in AI over the next few years. More specifically, around 535 of web marketers have the intention to spend more on AI in the next 4 years, while 17% intend to invest heavily in AI. More than half of those studied declared they had personally observed improvements to customer retention since introducing AI. Particularly when it comes to customer service, AI is dramatically transforming the way businesses improve their online user experience.

More children than ever before want to be influencers
The social media influencer as an idea didn’t even exist a few years ago. Nowadays, a study by Awin suggests that nearly 70% of children between 11 and 16 have aspirations to become social media influencers. Additionally, 155 of children have the intention to build careers on YouTube. Both of these numbers are higher than the number of children who want to become vets or teachers. But while children are dreaming of becoming the next huge social media success, nearly half of the parents involved in the survey had no idea what a social media influencer is all about or how it works.

Blue Monday appears to drive strong online retail sales

Online retailers seem to have taken full advantage of the most depressing day of the year – January 21. Turning to online shopping as a distraction from the gloom elsewhere, EmpathyBroker reported a noticeable increase in shopping-based online searched compared to a typical Monday. This amounted to around 30% heavier shopping traffic than the typical for a less-depressing Monday at any other time.

YouTube’s revenues from ads are still on the up

As every year, YouTube has once again achieved some impressive revenue growth – an 11% increase in 2018 compared to the previous year. Media and entertainment brands contributed in excess of 30% to YouTube’s advertising revenues.

Video reviews are preferred to textual write-ups

Lastly, a recent study by Small Business Trends confirmed the potential influence and value of quality video marketing. In this case, the study revealed that nearly four times more people prefer watching a video review of a product that simply reading about it. Along with the simplicity to deal with compared to block after block of text, a video review can help build a deeper connection with the viewer and can deliver much more detailed visual product information.

Five Steps for More Engaging Infographics

The fact that infographics are so uniquely powerful and influential really is a godsend. From a business perspective, being able to pack so much concise and relevant information into such a small marketing material is no less than fantastic. Not to mention the fact that close to half of all people are known to respond better to visual information than plain text alone.

So you understand and acknowledge the power and potential of outstanding infographics. But how to go about creating them?

Well, the good news is that regardless of what line of business you happen to be in, there are certain standards and conventions to stick with. In fact, work in accordance with the following five guidelines and your next infographic could be your most successful to date:

1. Identify your message and stick with it

As is the case with any good story, you need to first consider what your overall message is. Just like when penning a blog post, consider the purpose of the infographic and the relevant theme. Once you’ve made these decisions, you need to make sure you stick with them from start to finish. The closer you remain tied to the primary message and theme, the more convincing and engaging the infographic will be.

2. Work hard on your headline

If you want anybody to bother reading the content of your infographic, you first need to create a compelling headline. Once again, this is no different to the usual standard with any other kind of content creation. The key lies in providing the reader with a good idea what the infographic is all about, though without giving too much away. The idea being that they are compelled to continue reading the rest of its content from top to bottom. If you can create a sense of intrigue, you’re golden.

3. Keep it simple

The more complicated an infographic appears at first glance, the less likely anyone is to bother reading it. It’s a bit like when you come across an unbroken passage of text, as opposed to a passage punctuated by imagery and other breaks. Whether it’s too many visuals, too much text or simply too much of everything crammed into a small space, clutter and crowding can be extremely off-putting. Focus on the basics and keep things simple.

4. Light-hearted visuals

Although there are exceptions to the rule, most infographics benefit from visuals that are relatively light hearted. As you’ve probably noted by now, infographics tend to contain visuals that are somewhat cartoonish, entertaining and highly simplified. They very rarely contain complex, formal or distracting visuals of any kind.

5. Push and promote

Last but not least, perhaps the single most important rule when it comes to creating effective infographics is to push and promote them as vigorously as possible. It’s best to look at infographics in the same way you would view a press release. It represents a marketing material in its own right, but nonetheless needs to be marketed to have any real value. Always keep shareability in mind when deciding on the content for your infographics and do your best to get the process of sharing underway.

Five Ways to Wreck Your SERP Score with Google

It seems the one constant in the whole digital marketing landscape over recent years has been the importance of SEO. Or more specifically, achieving solid SERP performance. And as far as the immediate outlook is concerned at least, it doesn’t look as if things are about to change anytime soon.

That said, the one thing that has changed beyond recognition is the list of errors and oversights that can get you in trouble. Reaching the top spot with Google has never been more difficult – doing yourself a disservice has never been simpler. Which is exactly what a surprising number of online businesses are doing right now.

To just look at things from a slightly alternative perspective, here’s a rundown of five guaranteed ways to wreck your SERP score with Google:

1. Anything black hat

First up, there’s really no sense in listing the various examples of black hat SEO techniques you should be avoiding. The reason being that all black hat SEO should be avoided at all costs. Even if it’s the kind of thing you’d once get away with, or genuinely believe you’ve hidden sufficiently from view. These days, there are no short cuts to positive SEO whatsoever – trying to find them will only ever land you in hot water.

2. Duplicate content

As time goes by, the rules in terms of duplicate content are also becoming more and more severe. Bad enough when there’s duplicate content within the same site, even worse when the same content appears in different locations. Whatever your excuse, Google sees duplicate content as nothing more than lazy and of poor quality for web users. Even if you don’t agree, you still need to abide by the rules.

3. Too much guest blogging

You know how guest blogging can be a great way of an invaluable and abundant backlink? Well, as far as Google is concerned, too much of a good thing is bad. Just to clarify, guest blogging should in no way be considered black hat or inadvisable. It can actually be enormously beneficial and positive. Nevertheless, any kind of duplicate, poor-quality or spun content used for guest blogging is exactly the kind of thing that could reflect bad on you. Both in terms of your reputation and your SERP score.

4. Site performance issues

The problem with this particular consideration is that it didn’t use to be a consideration at all. At one time, you could get away with a website that wasn’t particularly speedy, reliable or easy to navigate. These days, all these things and everything else to do with performance are taken into account and considered accordingly. Which in turn means that even if your site’s content is no less than outstanding, it could be rendered redundant if site performance isn’t up to scratch.

5. Poor security

Last but not least, there’s nothing quite like being kicked when you’re already down. It’s not as if getting hacked isn’t bad enough. Nevertheless, evidence of hacking suggests that your website may have serious security issues – something that doesn’t go down well with Google. The long and short of it therefore being that as far as security is concerned, there’s no such thing as overprotecting your website.

4 Ways to Avoid E-Commerce Annihilation

Nowadays, it’s often said that in order to be able to survive as a retailer, you need to get involved in the ecommerce revolution. But at the same time, it is hardly difficult to notice how the ecommerce field is already utterly and completely dominated by a few leading brands. Put simply, no matter what you want or need, chances are you’ll be able to easily pick it up from a leading name online.



All of which seems to leave little space for smaller online brands, considering the David and Goliath struggle they usually face. But as far as the professionals are concerned, not all hope is lost. Quite to the contrary, as there are some ways and means by which focusing on what matters can assist any online store avoid complete annihilation by the ecommerce giants.

1. Don’t Count on Low Prices Alone

It is worth bearing in mind that most consumers value other elements of the service package above low prices. Amazing customer service, extremely reliable delivery times or just a brand with a story and ethos they can connect with. Surviving as a small ecommerce business means focusing on what it is that makes your brand both different and awesome from rivals.

2. Be a Service Provider, Not Just a Vending Machine

What this basically means is the way some online stores seem to exist like glorified vending machines, while others are exceptionally rich in engaging and useful content. The difference is that the large majority of web consumers respond significantly better to the latter. Therefore, it is crucial to make all efforts to build and market your businessand brand around so much more than products alone. You have to become an all-round service provider and an online authority your clients turn to for more than purchases alone.

3. Get to Know Your Clients

Loyalty schemes are both effective and important, with eMarketer recently revealing that next to 55% of web consumers admit that their spending habits are influenced by such programs. Nonetheless, it is once again crucial to go beyond the norm in order to be as competitive as possible. Provide regular e-mail updates, carry out surveys, request thoughts, reviews and opinions, find out what their priorities are.

4. Stay Social

Last up, you need to use every scrap of information you come across regarding your customers in terms of the content you create and your effort to maintain relationships. One of the most crucial pieces of the puzzle is that of staying social – making the most use of your social media channels and building one comprehensive online presence. It is not like the CEO of Amazon has the inclination or the time to get directly involved with customers via Twitter or Facebook. As a much more personal and small business, it’s very much something that you can do and hence should be doing.

How the Internet of Things will Impact Digital Marketing

Right now, it’s probably pretty safe to say that the Internet of things really isn’t having an enormous impact on your life. You’ve read about it, you’ve been aware of its existence for quite some time and you are continually told it will be the biggest revolution since the Internet itself. But at the same time, you don’t see a great deal of evidence of it actually happening.

But what makes this particular subject different than the usual chatter is one simple thing; it really is going to happen. The simple fact of the matter is that the reason the Internet of things hasn’t yet taken over is the way in which the consumer public in general doesn’t seem quite convinced for the time being. But they will – you only need to look at the way technology has become a part of everyday life to know this is the case. It might be a while before the Internet of things becomes the new standard, but it absolutely will happen – sooner or later.

And when it does happen, there are going to be quite spectacular changes for those who work in digital marketing. In this instance for sure, it could indeed turn out to be the biggest thing to happen since the Internet itself came about.

So with this in mind, what follows is an outline of four ways the Internet of things will alter the world of the digital marketer once and for all:

1. Conversational Queries Take Over
First of all, we are slowly but surely entering an era where conversational queries are gaining ground on standard text search standards. Rather than simply using one or two obvious keywords, we are now telling computers exactly what we want, in order to get more accurate and targeted results. The simple fact of the matter is that if you have ever interacted with Siri or Cortana, you are well on your way to becoming dependent on conversational queries. Even if it seems a little clumsy and far from perfect for the time being, it really won’t be long before you forget that conventional search engines ever existed. Suffice to say, a pretty important development and transition from the perspective of the digital marketers.

2. SERPs Disappear

Given the fact that it is entirely possible traditional search may no longer exist in the future, this would effectively mean that SERPs would be wiped from the face of the Earth. Right now, millions of marketing professionals the world over are embroiled in the constant battle to hit the highest of high levels in SERP rankings. It’s an industry worth billions, but one that technically could soon be worth absolutely nothing at all. Well, that’s not true entirely, as rather than investing heavily in topping visible results rankings, it will instead be a case of focusing on how to top the invisible rankings behind the scenes.

3. Google May Be Forced to Share
Given the way in which approaches to search and web interactions are set to change so radically due to the Internet of things, there’s a very strong possibility that Google will face new competition. Of course, they have the power and indeed the buying power to snap up and capitalise on the kinds of opportunities few others can hold a candle to. But at the same time, the way we find videos, products, information and so on will be so radically different than it is now, that the Google we know today may be in at least some capacities obsolete.

4. Personalisation Will Be Everything

Last but not least, location services and cookies may have worked wonders for personalisation, but we really have only just seen the very tip of the iceberg. When the Internet of things takes over as the new standard in our lives, chances are everything we do on a 24/7 basis will be monitored, tracked and used for a variety of purposes – marketing included. Even the way we drive and our sleeping habits could potentially be transformed into the kind of data marketing teams will be crying out for.

Creative And Low-Cost Online Marketing Strategies

With so many companies vying for attention on the online marketplace, it’s becoming harder and harder to get through to your target audience. This is particularly true if you don’t have the seemingly limitless marketing budget of some of the biggest players. But this needn’t be a handicap: if you want your online customers to take notice of you then all you have to do is think a bit more creatively.

Here are some low-cost marketing ideas you may not have considered:

Find Niche Blogs: It’s a good idea to use other media platforms to gain exposure, but of course many smaller companies couldn’t expect to get on the front cover of a big trade magazine. Instead, what you could do is seek out niche blogs that appear to be popular and well-respected. You can then suggest that you write a guest article for them focusing on some particular issue related to your sector. This is a good way to spread your company’s name (because you can usually include a link to your website) and set yourself up as someone clients could turn to for advice.

Create YouTube Videos: YouTube has hundreds of millions of unique visitors each month, which makes it a pretty powerful platform for business marketing. It’s also free to use, so you should make the best use of it by putting together a great video. Make sure the headline uses the right keywords and that it has a clear call to action (such as encouraging the viewer to visit your website or subscribe to your channel). Try to be original and make it either useful or entertaining – nobody wants to watch another dull corporate overview of a company.

Get Endorsement: Yes, if you’re a small business you can probably rule out finding a major Hollywood star to come on board. But have you thought about sounding out local celebrities to see if they would be willing to endorse your business? These don’t have to be actors, singers or TV personalities – it could simply be somebody who is well-known in the local area as a positive role model. You can then send them a free gift or trial of your products and follow this up later on to see if they would be willing to write you a testimonial. People are much more likely to buy something if somebody they recognise and trust has given it a positive review.

Start LinkedIn Group: Creating your own professional network can set you up as a useful information resources while increasing the number of visitors to your site and building up new contacts. Add to this to the fact that it’s free to do and there’s really no good reason no to. Just remember that this is a networking resource: at no point should you be attempting the hard sell.

Top Tips For A Strong SEO Strategy

We’ve all read the articles telling us that SEO is dead and we should be looking at other ways to promote our businesses online. The truth lies somewhere in the middle: yes, it’s becoming increasingly important to create high-quality content rather than playing the keywords numbers game.
But SEO is still an important part of your online marketing strategy – you just have to think about it in new ways.

Here, to give you some idea of what this might involve, are some of keys to successful SEO in today’s marketplace:

Headlines: You may have a well-written post, but it’s useless if the headline doesn’t make people click through to it. It has to strike the right balance between being interesting and truthful at the same time: people are getting more savvy about click-bait headlines these days so if they go through to a link and the article isn’t actually about what the headline suggests it is they will quickly navigate away from the page. So pick the most salient points, make the headline snappy, clever if possible and ensure the phrase appeals to your target audience.

Original Content: SEO is no longer just about getting any content at all up there as long as it contains your keywords: the aim is to create original, engaging and entertaining content. Remember that to build your brand you want people to share your posts and they won’t do this is if they’re read it all a thousand times before. Thinks of new ways to present your information, use images and present answers to common problems your target audience may have. That’s the way to get a post to go viral.

Inbound Links: Creating your own content is important, but you should also have plenty of other tools in your online marketing arsenal. Bear in mind that there are plenty of other ways to get inbound links to your site and you should be exploring these. Guest blogging has been a popular thing to do in recent years, although you need to be picky and find someone who adds value to your brand. You can also try using content delivery networks such as Taboola, which can also be instrumental in bringing in more traffic. For those who aren’t familiar with the term, this is a kind of automated service that places your content on sites that reach your target audience. Some companies like to share content with links to their site on community platforms such as Reddit.

How To Save Time In Online Marketing

There is only so much time in the working day and most companies – especially smaller ones – have limited resources to spend on online marketing. But nobody could deny that it’s a vital part of business development today so the most logical thing to do is employ some time-saving methods. You don’t have to spend hours and hours a day to implement an effective marketing strategy.

Here are some things to bear in mind:

Automate: You may think it’s cheaper to try to do everything manually rather than invest in software, but you may be pleasantly surprised to find out how affordable it can actually be – particularly when you factor in the savings to your manpower. To give just one example, if you invest in software for essential weekly and monthly market reports to be generated you will soon notice the difference. Many software programmes can even compile lead generation reports and carry out competitor analysis.

Hold Onto Customers: It’s no secret that it takes far less time to develop ways of building up long-term customer relationships than to start from scratch every time. There are many ways you can ensure clients don’t stray: for example, send them regular emails with special offers tailored to their individual needs, or surprise them now and then with free gifts. Also, make sure your website is always easy to navigate and works perfectly so customers have a positive experience every time they come back to buy something.

Organise: When you’re running a business there are so many different balls to be kept in the air that sometimes communication between your marketing department and other areas can break down. This is a problem, because in order for your online marketing strategy to be effective, everyone in the company has to know what is going on so they can promote your key objectives. The best way to keep things organised today is to use Google Drive, which allows documents to be viewed and edited from multiple devices. Even if you are on the move you can keep an eye on what’s going on and everybody else can stay up-to-date too.

Updating Content: To keep your online marketing strategy fresh it is essential that you keep updating the content of your website on a regular basis. But sourcing content can be time-consuming so you need to come up with a workable system. There are platforms available, such as Buzzsumo, with tools to help you find the most popular content and highlight influencers on social media sites. Well worth investing in if you want to stay ahead of the trends when it comes to content generation but don’t have much time to invest in it.

5 Essential Tools Your Business Needs To Boost Your Online Presence

Let’s face it, if you are still not marketing your business online than you are not reaching at least 80% of your total potential customers. With the internet evolving every day and most people having internet access, you cannot afford not to market your business online. By building a good online presence and building your brand, you can reach millions of customers from all parts of the world! It’s time to get educated! Read on…


You absolutely need a website!
It all starts with your own company website. You can easily register a domain name for your website and preferably use your company name as the domain name. Showcase your company brands and services offered on your site. Give more details and information about your company and make sure your contact details are on your site for potential customers to be able to reach you.
Your website will enable you to even sell your products online. Just add a shopping cart and online payment processer on your site and you are good to go. Your website can make sales for you 24 hours a day, while you sleep!

Once your website is up and running, it is important to update it regularly. You want to encourage your website visitors to be repeat visitors and to do this you need to always have new content on your website. Whether you update your site with your latest products, latest company news, products specials, related articles, anything! Just make sure you always have fresh new content on your site to make people come back for more. You want to use your site to build a loyal reader base that will later convert into customers.

Add a Blog to your site!
A blog is a great way to add fresh content your site. You can add just about any content in a blog, preferably articles relating to your company and products. The great thing about having a blog is that it allows reader engagement and allows your readers to comment on your blog posts. This interaction will help build a relationship with your customers and increase repeat visitors.
Not only will this be good for returning customers but this will help you get new customers. The more your online presence improves, the more likely your website will start appearing in search engine results such as Google, Yahoo and Bing. Just make sure your blog is easily located on your website so that your readers know where to access it. Similar to your website, make sure you add fresh new blog posts on a regular basis to your blog so there is always new content for your repeat customers.

Add Social Media to your site
Make sure that you add links to social media accounts of your company on your website. Yes, you have to create social media accounts. Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and even Instagram. They all work in building your brand online. Create these accounts using your brand or company name so they can easily be found on these sites.

For Facebook, you will have to create a Facebook page with the same name as your company. The content on here will be similar to a blog and very simple to run. Social media is powerful as it allows people to share posts and content. This creates the possibility of information about your company going viral. Your company will be reached by more users on these platforms.

More importantly you will be reaching potential customers who are using mobile devices. As technology is evolving, people are becoming more comfortable in using their mobile devices in buying products online. By aligning your business with social media you are tapping into those customers that do not use computers to access the internet. This places you 10 steps ahead from your competitors.

Go Viral with YouTube
Like social media, YouTube has also become very social. YouTube videos get shared everywhere! From blogs, tweets and Facebook even on instant messengers. Did you know that YouTube has over 1 billion users? How many customers do you think you can reach on YouTube…Thousands!
Make sure you create a YouTube channel with your company name and upload videos on a regular basis. Upload cool videos that people will like and share. Even YouTube videos end up in search engine results. This will boost your online presence.

Email Marketing
Email marketing on its own has been a successful way of converting leads into customers. There is no reason why you cannot take advantage of this. By adding an email submit form on your website, you can easily build a database of potential customers who are interested in your service or products. You can send them regular newsletter about your latest products, special and useful information. Just make sure that you do not spam them.
Building an online presence may seem like a difficult task for any small business but by implementing these 5 tools, you will be known to the world sooner than you ever imagined!

Want To Get More Comments On Your Blog?

Blogging is a very simple form of online marketing and it’s certainly one of the cheapest. All you have to do is identify your area of expertise and begin writing informative articles about it. If you’re a business owner this is a way of establishing yourself as an expert in your sector by offering worthwhile advice or sharing tips.

But to be really successful at this you need to build up a readership. One sure sign that you’re efforts are working is if a lot of readers are engaging and contributing to the ‘comments’ section usually to be found at the bottom of any blogging page.

Here’s how to get those comments coming in:

Don’t Sit On The Fence: Readers won’t feel compelled to respond to your blog if it doesn’t give them something to think about. For this reason, you should never be afraid to voice clear opinions (as long as you aren’t being offensive). Challenging people by taking a stand on a certain subject gives them the option of either agreeing or disagreeing. Whichever side of the fence they sit on, they will often feel compelled to offer their own opinions. You will not get comments if your blog is simply a dull outpouring of platitudes or previously expressed opinions.

Pose Questions: The simplest and most direct way to get people to comment on your blog is to ask questions. People like to be asked for their input, so you could for example ask what articles they would like to see featured, any problems they have working in this sector; or what their priorities are. Even better if it is relating to a controversial issue that is likely to divide opinion and produce a strong response.

Cross-Blogging: If you interact with other bloggers through commenting on their blogs you will often find that they will do the same for you. Look for blogs which are similar to yours without being identical. You may then find that people who read and comment on their blogs will see the link to yours and follow that too. Also, remember to respond to any comments on your blog, whether this is to thank the reader for their interest or follow up on any point they have made. If you can establish an interaction with your readers they are far more likely to continue commenting in the future.