I was talking to Mirriam of Solas Web Design today (yes talking, on a phone, can you imagine?) and the conversation turned to blogging and who blogs really reach out to.

Mostly it’s peers.

While many blogs are for solution providers (web design, SEO, etc.) they talk to their peers instead of their customers. This is something I’ve noticed here at 14thC. It is my natural inclination to do that because this site started out as a resource for me that I intended to share with my peers. But over the last several months I’ve been shifting it to clients.

Writing for your peers is not a bad thing even if they aren’t your target market. Benefits of writing for your peers include developing an industry reputation, greater likelihood of getting relevant backlinks, and displaying yourself as a professional within the industry to your readers - even the clients.

By developing an industry reputation you may find a niche that you excel in that may get you some referrals or partnership opportunities. For example, Bill Slowski of SEO by the Sea is known for research into search engine patents. This can be very valuable depending on the campaign you are running. Solas Web Design makes beautiful ecommerce sites.

Now I know who to call if I need help with those things.

But should your blog really target your peers? Often there is a lot of jargon that may turn potential prospects away. And from an SEO point of view, jargon is not likely to be the KWs used by your market. It helps to define your terms but that doesn’t get the customers to the site, just educates them once they are there.

So I was thinking about methods to locate your customers online. There are some general tactics that are something of a “broad strokes” way to go like social bookmarking. Getting Dugg will get the word out about you but it will mostly miss the people that actually want your services. Press releases are another “broad” tactic though it can be narrowed down a bit depending on your distributor.

Online advertising through PPC programs like Adsense and link purchasing can help. The links are presumably put on relevant sites but by my observations these systems still have a long way to go. Of course you can do your own link building.

A better metthod might be looking for communities where your customers gather. Blogs and forums are great places for people to get together under a common purpose and share tips, ideas and even links. Try this query for a way to locate these sites. Just swap out the product mentioned (bigscreen tv) for your own product or service. Also, check your logs to see if anyone has linked to you in a post. Once you do find a “hub” of your customers be sure to follow these tips for making friends online.

Of course the best way to discover your customers is by having them discover you! This is where search engine optimization comes in but that can only be effective by writing to your customers.

Next Article: Website usability is about people Previous Article: Review: Waiting for Your Cat to Bark?

Leave a Reply