How a Blog Can Gain You Business: A Personal Experience That Can Be Tied to E-commerce

Gosh, have I missed Solid Cactus.  I was out for the week, attending my final creative writing residency at Wilkes University.  I spent eight days on campus with fellow students, faculty, guest readers, etc. all culminating with a final banquet honoring the latest graduates, which this time– after 18 months of work and four residencies- included me.

At any rate, this blog is not about me- but I had an experience this week that I couldn’t wait to share with the e-commerce community.  After the final banquet, all the students and staff have an after-party at a local bar.  During this mingling session, one of my friends came up to me to tell me that a new student had chose the Wilkes MA in Creative Writing program because of me.

“He found your blog and read all about it,” said Mike.  “You have to go introduce yourself to him!”

So, Mike pointed out the young man, Chris, and I ventured over to him.  I introduced myself, but he recognized me since I post so many pictures on my blog.  Turns out, in conversation, Mike had asked where he was from.  “Oregon,” said Chris. Mike had asked what made him choose Wilkes, since it’s so far away.  That’s when Chris volunteered finding my blog.

Chris had explained that he heard about the Wilkes program, but in his search for more information, when he Googled the program, my blog came up second in the search engine.  For all the academic places out there that have information on creative writing programs, I’d say that’s pretty cool that my blog turns up so high.  And, it’s bascially an accident, really.  This is my personal blog, but I do blog about the Wilkes program often.  Chris had so much fun reading about my experiences, my friendships, etc. that he chose Wilkes over the other programs he was considering.  That made me feel awesome!  Wilkes earned an enrollment because my blog was found.

But again, this blog isn’t about me so much- just thought this story was a HUGE example of the power of a blog.  My blog has been around for a few years, which is good for SEO.  I also used the same keywords about Wilkes’ creative writing program a lot, also good for the search engines.  But it’s not like I was trying to earn a top spot on the organic rankings for Wilkes University– it just kinda happened.  It perhaps shows that the academic sites out there aren’t writing as much SEO-friendly content as I am, and that they aren’t taking advantage of blogging.  I know that Wilkes does not have program-specific blogs, but it’d be great if they did.

How can you, as an e-commerce business owner, use this story to your advantage?  Just start a blog and keep up with it.  Don’t worry so much about trying to focus on keywords, etc as you write.  As you can see from my example, I just wrote naturally, what I felt… and the excellent rankings happened on it’s own.  I wasn’t being salesly because I am a student, not an admissions rep. It just shows that writing to entertain and inform can ultimately help sell, too.  Consider it a sales aid!

Someone could just actually make a buying decision based on your blog, or a third party blog rather than your actual sales or informational site.