Greetings, this newsletter will discuss several ways to increase exposure and sales through your website by using blogging in the new year. Several customers have expressed a desire to use their blogs more effectively, while also describing the challenges and lack of understanding they face in communicating online. My goal here is to provide a timely, relevant example of how to use your blogs and remind you how to make updates through the SOS system.

Currently Sustainable Online Solutions caters to a variety of small businesses ranging from gyms to chiropractors, massage tharapists, aspiring directors and cinematic artists, leadership camps for young adults, and image consultants. While the variety of industries represented by our clientel may seem to differentiate them and call for individual approaches to blogging, there are several themes that any business can tap into to stay relevant and increase traffic to their website.

Before we dive into some examples, I want to remind everyone that the web is a casual medium. Blogs, especially, are often full of opinions, spelling mistakes, and run on sentences... and that's okay! Your company blog can represent your individual voice or the opinions and stories of customers, a recent news article that you found relevant or even a question to your customers - all as long as they somehow relate to your business. Don't be afraid to start posting just because you are new to marketing or have never blogged before, in many ways it is similar to sending an email or making an informal announcement at a Chamber of Commerce meeting. The "official" contact, about us, services, etc. pages of your website have already been checked for errors and those are the pages that will reflect your professionalism. Now that you are adding content in the form a blog, let go and begin sharing your expertise - you are not in the business of copy editing.

As a small business owner you are an expert in your respective community. Use your website and your blog to share some of your expertise to attract customers and gain trust.

Whether you are attracting users from your local area or across the world to visit your website, web traffic or "hits" never hurt and the more visitors you get, the more of an authority your site will become. This in turn helps your page to rank higher when people search for "Denver Chiropractor" or "Mountain View Gymnastics" and that's where you want to show up. All of this begins with traffic, and you can influence traffic by blogging regularly.

Now on to some examples. Every single company that is working with SOS right now can and should be blogging about how the new administration will help or change their business. Not only is this an interesting topic that can be revisited in the coming years, it is top of mind right now and since there are many unknowns, you are free to extrapolate into how you want things to go and what you are excited about. Be positive and get people excited about your business.

Medical Example: Barack Obama's plans for universal healthcare could mean that chiropractic care and massage therapy such as Rolfing will get new coverage and become more affordable for the main stream populous.

Camp Example: The Obama administration has placed importance on curricular development and sustainability in schools. He visited and wrote to support new "green" schools in several locations discussed here which is similar to the programs offered by our camp xyz in these ways.

Did you notice how I linked to one of my own websites in that last example? Cross linking (even within your own site) is very valuable and should be done often to help your users and search engines navigate and understand you.

Media & Style Example: During the inaguation and inaugural ball Barack Obama and Michelle Obama were dressed in xyz type of outfits which demonstrate this use of style and color. These choices are in fashion right now along with xyz and we offer this type of service as a part of our style consultancy.

Did you notice how I misspelled inauguration? That was an accident, but if I can't spell it right there are probably other people who struggle as well. My job isn't to be a perfect writer, I am a marketing professional and people respect that - the minor error will pass and potentially even attract people searching for the wrong word.

Below is a good picture of Barack Obama... Be like him and use your blog to dominate your industry! I read a good article about him being "Geek and Chief" in a local newspaper and I'll link to that later if I can find it.

I hope these basic examples help my customers to more fully realize their online business and marketing goals. Static websites will eventually fall to the bottom of the pile as newer, more relevant information is created and posted elsewhere. Keep your website at the top by updating it regulary using your blog and always direct your real life customers to your website for announcements and details. I realize these examples may be a bit under developed, but I am not the expert in these fields, you are! I can however, guarantee you that this page will now be visited by other people looking to improve their blogging techniques, and overall my site will now be found for Obama keywords ;)

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