Keeping the Advertising Real

It’s great when you’ve got your website or blog and everything is going along smoothly. You’re getting lots of hits and hopefully even the sales or orders for your service are starting to climb to the point where you start to wonder how much more you can accomplish. You start to think that maybe you’re thinking too small, that maybe you should be doing a little more marketing and pulling in some really big numbers.

Although this is the point that every business owner dreams about, it’s also the point where the small businessman on the Internet needs to be careful since the Internet may very well be the only place where too much advertising can be a bad thing. Remember it’s always good to pitch and sell your own goods and services and you can even add to that momentum by applying several other revenue-generating functions like affiliate links and donation requests, but there comes a point where the original function of your blog can become blurred to the point that people visiting your site might be unclear as to what it is that you’re even trying to sell. 

You lose readers and you certainly won’t increase sales when you go over the top with your blog or website. You need to keep in mind here as well that there are big differences between a blog and a website. One of these is reader expectation. With a blog, the reader expects to be entertained with something a little more personal than on a website. Blog readers are not opposed by and large to the occasional sales pitch, but they’re more often than not looking through the blog sections for something to read or something that titillates their interest. It’s important here that you don’t let the possibilities of the market place blind you to the real purpose of the blog which is to serve your readers.

That said, if you’re just into selling things the more traditional website might be for you. Generally they cost a little more and have the possibility of a larger variety of gimmick. Also, while people generally expect that they’ll be able to read something of note on either the blog or the website, they expect to get more of a hard sell on the website. So if you feel your readers can benefit from a link to some related book on Amazon.com, by all means include it, but rely mostly on traditional revenue streams to bring the money in for your company. Business bloggers need to be especially careful when attempting to solicit donations or even with their commercial efforts. While lots of business is done through blogging, it requires less of the direct approach that you’ll see on many business based websites.

With a deft approach, an informative blog will help your customers to really communicate with your company and that will result in new and repeat customers for your endeavor.