Using Your Online Marketing Blog to Promote Your Business

One of the very best ways you can promote your business these days is through the use of an online marketing blog, designed to direct readers and potential customers to your business by developing relationship, gaining trust, and being in general a useful resource for those looking for what you have to offer. What are some of the ways you can use your blog to promote your business? Let's take a quick look.
Perhaps the best way is to create a blog that visitors determine to be an authority in your market or niche. These types of sites are returned to again and again, bookmarked, (thus providing you with all-important backlinks) and are where the modern consumer is getting much of their information all the way through the buying process. If you've created the kind of blog that is trustworthy, not attempting to sell your visitors every second, and offers genuinely useful information, you'll soon find that not only will you be gaining in popularity, but you'll be doing  less and less to gain that notoriety. Your customers and visitors will be doing it for you. Such is the way of the Social Web. People talk, text, Tweet and otherwise spread the word. Just make sure they're talking about you and your blog!
Your blog should be a great place to dispense free nuggets of information that will be is use to your readers. However, be sure that the ultimate carrot lies awaits them at your main business site. In all cases direct your interested visitors to your business through the use of giveaways, contests, special offers, coupons, sales, limited time promotions and more. People love to feel as though they're getting tremendous value for their time and money. Make sure you strive to offer both!
Make sure you optimize your marketing blog so it will rank in the search engines as well. Make sure you're always on the lookout for linking opportunities, and utilizing other SEO methods to make sure your blog is found within the first few pages of the search results. Write and distribute new and fresh content all the time and try to get it syndicated, thus improving your blogs reach. Have guest bloggers contribute and do the same on blogs related to yours.  
Make your blog as interactive as possible. Talk to your visitors, and learn from them. Conduct polls, ask lots of questions; this is a quick and cheap way to conduct market research from some of the most targeted people you can find.
Don't inundate your blog with ads, as this will confuse the purpose of your blog. An exception to this might be high-paid contextual advertising, but be aware that generally anything that takes the visitor away from your blog, unless they're going to your main site, is not a good thing.  
Using an online marketing blog as a tool to help promote your business is a great idea, and one that will bear fruit for years to come. All it costs you is time, and this will be returned to you many times over!