Business owners commonly believe that if they build a website for their company, and populate it with items for purchase, that people will simply flock to it with no further effort required. In order for your small business's website to do any good, you are going to need to commit to a series of off-site and on-site articles every month.

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On-Site Writing

Once your site is completely set up, and all of your regular pages are in order, you will need to have a supply of blogs available. Search engines determine a web page's worth based on several different aspects, one of them being how regularly the website has an update made to it.

As an entrepreneur, you know you don't want to delay the information on your site as a form of regular updating. You want all the information your customers need in order to find your shop and buy products from you available from day one. The way that you keep your website constantly updated is through the blog section on your page.

But what to blog about? Entrepreneurs find it most helpful to blog about topics that are related to the industry that their business is in. Some prefer to talk about how their industry has played a part in recent national news. Some enjoy introducing new items in a weekly spotlight, and others use their blog as a way of providing their customers with helpful hints and advice about the industry. These should be done once a week, preferably on the same day.

Original Work

You should always use original work, regardless of where on the Internet the writing is intended for. Modern search engines have an algorithm built into their programming that recognizes web duplicates, and discards them all from the search parameters. As such, if you use a single piece of writing on your website, and scattered all over the web as a direct copy, none of it will do you any good.

Social Media Updates

As an entrepreneur, you should recognize that social media is a powerful tool for spreading the word about your business. It isn't enough simply that your business has pages at the big social media destinations. You need to keep your status updated, and show your customers that you are an active part of their community.

These updates don't have to be made every day. Whenever you add a new blog to your site, make a short statement about the blog, and link to it as well, on your social media sites. These short statements can be safely copy and pasted.

Off-Site Writing Types

The off-site styles of writing can be formatted much like your blog posts are, unless they are destined for article directory homes. Entrepreneurs often use the same keywords or topics as their blog posts, but write a brand new article about the idea for use elsewhere than their blog. Here are some of the favorite destinations for these short writings around the web.

Squidoo

Any written piece destined for Squidoo should be written boldly. You want to capture your reader's attention with the headline, and suck them in with intriguing information within the first paragraph. But be aware: if no one clicks on your Squidoo article for 30 consecutive days, the site will take it down automatically until you “change it” to make it more appealing to readers.

With Squidoo, you should be daring and innovative, but at the same time, feel free to use the first person (I, we) when speaking about your company. You can use your company name, and even link to your website.

Article Directories

When you are writing for article directories, you need to be aware of the fact that these directories have highly different requirements than other places on the web do. You may write about any topic that you wish, although you may not use a designated keyword more often than 1 time in every 100 words.

You must phrase the article entirely in the third person (he, she, they), and may not mention your company by name. It is only in the author box that you may place a link back to your company's website. These articles must appear as news pieces, and offer valid advice in order to be approved.

Live Journal, Hub Pages, Blog Spot

At locations such as these, which are scattered around the Internet, you may produce writing that is similar to what you would write for your blog. At each of these sites, you will establish your own account for your business, and may fill it with whatever information you like.

Businesses commonly select two or three of these sites, and update them once every other week. These sites will be entirely about your business, and yet another way to draw attention back to your business's website through the active use of links.

LinkedIn

Entrepreneurs often overlook LinkedIn as a form of social media. They commonly have business pages set up on LinkedIn in order to make use of the tools for finding employees, but they don't realize that they can use LinkedIn as an additional way to stay in contact with their customers.

LinkedIn offers many tools that the business owner can make use of, including a way to gather responses from the community and even repost the comments that further community discussion.

How It All Combines

All of this may seem like a lot of effort to put into writing about your company and your industry on a monthly basis, but it will start paying off almost immediately. The key is to stagger the posting of all of these different articles across the Internet, so that a couple of new pieces are added each week. These efforts will combine to create a constant flow of new information and activity across the Internet, all sponsored by, and linking back to, your business website. You will have higher search engine for your efforts within a couple of weeks.

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