Trust and Blogs

Richard

Many high-power advertisers have concluded over the years that blogs are worthless in terms of income. They’re probably right about the direct correlation. But what does that mean?

It means you can’t sell a product from a blog. That seems pretty obvious, given that blogging is one facet of social networking. People do not expect to be sold when they come to a blog, and the vast majority won’t stand for it.

However …

• If you use your blog to effectively build trust with potential customers, then it will definitely increase your bottom line. Consumers are a pretty darned skeptical group these days. If they’ve just found you by a web search, their confidence in you is probably non-existent.
• But if they start on your blog and find you to be open and informative, someone dedicated to educating their market, who won’t keep secrets from their prospects, then the game changes.
• If your blog gives them value and they begin to see you as an expert in the niche, someone who gives away valuable tips & information, then their thinking changes. They start to trust you, because we all dream of doing business with the expert in our niche.
• If you (or your blogger) is really good at relating to people and drawing them into discussion, then a community of people who like & trust you begins to build … and that is very attractive to newcomers.
• If you take the reader into your confidence and reveal your ideas & plans for the future … and ask for their suggestions & feedback … then they see that you are extending trust to them. That brings them to feeling increased trust for you.
• If you really cultivate your blog and share great tips & ideas and give good value and interact with your visitors and value their input and create a growing community, your blog will gain more favor with the search engines. And as your blog moves up the search engine listings in your niche, searchers start coming to your page with greater trust already built-in.

And as your community grows, many of your fans will link to you in their blogs or websites dedicated to your niche. That recommendation again increases the trust felt by new visitors … and certainly increases the speed of a new visitor converting to a new customer.

Do blogs correlate to income? Absolutely.

Take care,

Richard Dennis