If you sell products or services and you want people to buy them, don’t offer your opinions. Nobody cares. People care about themselves, and as far as you’re concerned, they care about what you can do for them.
Blog about what you do, not what you think. This is one of the simplest and most effective bits of advice I could ever give you. Your blog is a gateway to your sales and conversion funnel. Never forget that. Its purpose is to get people down that funnel, resulting in a sale. No matter what business you’re in, you’re actually in the business of helping other people conduct their business better, faster, or cheaper than their competition. What you do, not what you think, is what has an impact on people.
When you write about what you think or your opinions, you are forcing your readers to make a choice: agree with you or disagree with you. Those that disagree will not buy from you.
When you blog about what you do, future customers who read your blog will imagine themselves in the place of the customer you’re writing about. They will see themselves as benefiting from your product or service, because you’re writing about how someone else benefited. If you write customer success stories, other people will want that story to be their story. If you write about how you’re innovating in the market and what’s coming up, you are taking your readers along with you on that trip. Your readers see action, results, and benefits, and they will want those benefits for themselves.
This is not to say that you shouldn’t ever do an opinion piece or a review or industry news. These are expected to show your involvement and expertise. It provides variety and well-rounded subject matter for your blog. Just don’t forget that when you’re blogging to help your business, people want to know that your business is doing something and that you are helping people get what they want. Because when your readers see that you help other people get what they want, they will know that you could help them get what they want, too.
And that puts them closer to the buy decision.
Note: I updated this post by adding the last two paragraphs on Oct. 27.



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