Many small business owners have one main website which contains information about their company and their products. Sometimes it is an e-commerce site where customers can make purchases directly through the site. Obviously, having a website is useful, but what about a blog? Including a blog has many benefits. In fact, some online marketing studies have shown that sites which incorporate a blog get more traffic than a site without one. After all, who doesn’t want to attract more visitors to their website?

Besides the increased traffic, blogs can have many additional benefits for your site. Here are some of them:

• They can increase your search engine ranking

Search engines such as Google love high quality blogs and having one on your site can do wonders to increase your search engine ranking. It can also provide you with useful backlinks back to your main site as well as relevant parts of it, such as product descriptions.

• They can establish you as an authority in your niche

The purpose of a blog for a business is not really to sell anything, but rather to show you as an authority in your niche by providing content which your readers will find useful. You can give information about how to best use your products, news about your industry, as well as any advice or tips that your readers will appreciate.

• Blogs give you another place to interact with your visitors

When you post articles on your blog, you can allow readers to leave comments. This is a great way to get feedback about your blog and your business. It is also an excellent way to answer questions that a customer might have about a certain product. Blog comments give your visitor an easy way to get in touch with you should they be interested in something that you offer, but might not be ready to buy it just yet. Of course, with blog comments there is always the issue of comment spam. However, there are various WordPress plugins that you can use to limit the amount of spam comments that you get. Of course, you can always approve each comment manually, thus eliminating most of the spam. Putting a notice that comments are moderated and approved manually will also serve to deter spammers.

Getting the Most out of Your Blog

To get the most out of a blog, it needs to be updated on a regular basis with fresh new content. This will not only help you when it comes to SEO, but will also be very useful at keeping your readers interested. After all, nobody wants to read a blog that seems “dead” and hasn’t had an update in several months. A good thing about blogs is that you can now include multimedia content such as video on them as well, so if you have a video that you would like to share with your readers, you can put it up on your blog as well.

If you already have a membership site that’s doing fairly well, and an equally successful list to go with it, what’s the next step? Where do you go from there to ensure that your list will keep growing? There are a few things you can do to keep growing your list, even if you’re already done a fair job of growing it.

If you haven’t done so already, integrate your membership site, and your list directly, so that when someone signs up for your site, they’ll be automatically subscribed to your list as well. Most membership site software makes it easy to integrate the two, but if you really get stuck, and you can’t get the two sign ups into one form, put an opt in for your list on your sign up page. It’s also a good idea to put a list opt in on your site’s sidebar. That way, even if someone isn’t a registered user yet, they can still sign up for your list.

You may want to consider using a forced opt in page as well. One of the most effective uses of a forced opt in page is the two step checkout. In a two step checkout, after the customer clicks the “buy” button on your sales letter, or product page, they’ll first be sent to an opt in page that asks for their email address and name. The page should indicate that it is step one of two, so they customer is clear on where they stand in the checkout process. Once they opt into your list, they’ll be redirected to the actual checkout form so they can complete their purchase. If you’re using this method, it’s important to make your opt in page feel like a part of the checkout process. Make sure the opt in page doesn’t look significantly different from the actual checkout form. Customers may become wary of your site if they feel like the forced opt in wasn’t actually part of the checkout process.

Whether your membership site is small, or large, these tips can help you to grow your list in a big way.There are always more ways to encourage your users to opt into your list. Try to incorporate the list into your site as heavily as possible, and you’ll see your list grow quickly.