Can Your Business Blog Pass the Acid Test?

You had better believe your business blog visitors are looking for the “acid test” in your blog.  An acid test, of course, is a process of finding out if something is real or not.  From the wonderful little book I’m highlighting this week in my Say It For You blog, I learned that, back in the Middle Ages, hydrochloric acid was used to test for real gold .

“When someone visits a blog, they decide whether they should read or run,” observes Derek Halpern of DYIthemes.com., adding that “trust triggers” prevent your website from” losing out on the visitors you rightfully earned.” A trust trigger is something that makes them say to themselves, “Okay, this site is the real deal.” Halpern lists the number of subscribers and social media followers you have as important trust triggers, for example.

Lee Ka Hoong of smartbloggerz.com, on the other hand, suggests offering freebies such as e-books, coupons, services, etc. and blogging something personal, while Georgina el Morshdy of copyblogger.com. advocates giving your ideas names and labels, presenting formulas alongside empirical evidence.

As a business blogging trainer, the piece of advice from Lee Ka Hoong that is my favorite is this: “Be consistently good.  Train your audience to expect a certain level of quality from you and constantly deliver."

“Trust is a big word and it doesn’t come at a cheap price,” .cautions Harsh Agrawal of basicblogtips.com.  Agrawal reminds us that there’s a huge difference between a website and a blog.  When it comes to a blog, he says, people look for a face, a person they can connect to. “A good About page is all about you AND your blog.

Leadership coach David Lim talks about being definitive, avoiding “kinda-sorta” statements, sounding trustworthy and authoritative.  “Authority” is actually an important term in SEO marketing blog writing. For one, Google’s algorithms are sensitive to authority when selecting which content to match with a reader’s search in any given category.

The acid test for readers who visit your blog for answers and for information they can trust might be thought of as having three parts:
:

• Do you come across as an expert in your field?
• Do you seem like a go-to source of information?
• Do you present a definite perspective on your industry?

Are you “for real”, your readers are asking?  Your blog content will help them decide.