“I hope this thing is reliable, I’m pretty sure I am not getting scammed, this is a much better deal than I could have received from the dealership”, these are just some of the thoughts that I had as I was purchasing a used vehicle from a private party several weeks ago. The thing with buying used vehicles is, you never know if everything is going to work as advertised once you buy the car, but for the deal I got, I figured it was worth the gamble.
Later that week, I did find a quark, when I went to charge my cell phone with the built-in USB port that was on the dash of the vehicle, I found that even though my phone was plugged in and showed it was charging the battery life would still drop. I had no idea why this was happening, so I did what most anybody these days would do, “I Googled it”.
Finding answers to questions
I typed in something to the effect of “built-in USB charging port not working.” There was a whole list of options that came up, some were vehicle repair forums, and others were what appeared to be random answers to my query. As I read the descriptions below each result (meta descriptions) I was drawn to a site that talked about how most of the time when your cell phone is not charging it is because the built-in USB charging port does not have enough amperage. The brief description in the summery was enough to cause me to click on it. I found that the description was a summation of a Blog article. It was written with a helpful perspective on how to diagnose this type of problem. I soon found this Blog article was actually on a website for a company that sells all kinds of USB charging ports. I looked around the site and found a replacement charging port that would work for my vehicle.
This is just one example of how people search for the answers to their questions online, and how these questions can be answered by a helpful article, AKA: a Blog.
A Blog does not need to be a Diary
A Blog does not have to be a diary of activities that have taken place or are going to take place with an individual or company. This misconception is quite common. I have found most companies who have not embraced the Internet, generally start with this type of perception about a Blog.
My personal definition of a Blog is “any original content posted to your site in an organized repository”. Let me explain this definition a bit more:
“Any …Content”: Content could include a short video. It could be a Q&A article, or it could even be simply a helpful worksheet. The information should be substantial enough to answer a question or give information on a topic.
“Original Content”: The content should be of your own creation. This is a major factor taken into account by search engines when indexing your blog. Just copying content from another site and putting it on your company’s blog is not what you should be going for. This approach, in fact, will most likely hurt the chances of your site being found by interested parties.
“Organized Repository”: Your blog is a living growing thing. It should continually be used to add content/value to your website which in turn makes it more likely to be found as well as more useful to your potential customers (Buyer Personas). All this information means to keep things organized and easy to find your blog should contain some type of navigation by topic or category. It can also include any other type of delineation that is applicable.
CTA: As a side note, each blog article or at least blog page should contain at least one or even multiple calls to action (CTA). These CTA are critical to showing your reader what a logical next step would be (See CTA example below). If the reader found the information useful but is still looking for additional information, these CTAs should be designed to help the reader further down the Buyer’s Journey funnel.
Your Blog can be an invaluable component of a successful marketing plan. If you are interested in finding out more about how a Blog can be implemented in your company’s website we are here to help.
And by the way, the car has turned out to be a great vehicle.
