Spun Digital - Finding customers online

Blogging can be a great tool for website promotion - as well as offering an instant update on news and opinions it also boosts networking capabilities and helps to put a personal 'front' on an organisation. On a simple level blogging is just about adding content to your site - the more content you have, the more traffic you'll get, the more links you'll attract, the more domain authority you'll build, and around you go again. Shaun Anderson, writing for the advice site Hobo Web, says that for successful blogging it is important to bear in mind while writing that you are attempting to create a resource that drives traffic. A blog can serve a number of purposes, states Mr Anderson. It can attract links from other sites, making potential clients more aware of service and products, or grow a reputation and influence in social media. SEO expert Adam Stafford, writing for TechRadar.com, notes that blogs are great for building relationships with bloggers and the rest of the online community, and giving them good content to which they can link. That way, he says, "you've got an entire network of people within a niche to connect with". Blogs are also an excellent way of search optimising your website, he adds. Because of the way blogging works, pages appear immediately in Google results. Mr Anderson says that the biggest mistake new bloggers will probably make is to be cautious about linking to other people's blogs - this is a great tool for increasing your search engine optimisation, especially if other bloggers return the link. "If you're not even a bit generous with your links in articles, and all your links are to internal pages, you're making it much harder for yourself," he advises. Mr Anderson says that, in his opinion, blogging should be at the centre of any social media campaign. The best way to receive links and spark conversation, he adds, is to write blogs which are designed to be useful for those seeking advice on a particular subject.