Does Your Company Have a Business Blog?

Posted on March 20 2010 by admin

Many companies realize the importance of having a blog installed on their site, but they don’t understand what the importance is. As a consequence, many blogs across the country are sadly being abandoned and neglected through no fault of their own.

Why Your Business Should Use a Blog

There are wonderful blogs out there just waiting for a loving author to give them a chance – and content. As you can see, this is a disturbing issue that we need to face as a society. I thought about heading up my local chapter of BAAB (Businesses Against Abandoned Blogs), but I decided to write this blog post instead.

Now, down to business- all companies, large or small, should have a blog on their Web site. But what do you do with that blog? If you own a business, then you are hopefully very passionate about what you do or sell, right? Ok, so blog about it!

Yup, it’s as simple as that. The No. 1 rule of writing is to write what you know. But the No. 1 rule of Internet marketing is to engage your audience with something free and valuable, like information. If you can turn your blog into a go-to information center for your readers, they will want to read it.

Readers may then start to read your blog every day and pass the word around that your blog is great resource for learning about (fill in the blank). The goal is to create a trust factor with your readers by offering them good, insightful and helpful information. After trust is achieved, readers may venture to other parts of your Web site and, eventually, they may buy something.

Luckily, the benefits of blogging don’t stop there. Your search engine rankings are also more likely to improve with daily blog posts, since fresh and relevant content is a metric that search engine crawlers look for. It makes sense, because the search engines know that people do not want to read old, outdated Web sites or content.

So they do not send their searchers there. As a result, the more fresh and original content you post on your blog, the more authority you demand with the search engines. In fact, some companies that don’t have the time to write daily blog posts for their site can simply order their blog posts from a certain SEO company that offers custom content creation – what a great idea!

A huge mistake that many uninformed people make while trying to get in on this trendy action is blogging for other people. By ‘other people’ I mean other Web sites that serve as an aggregate for blogs. Basically, you sign up on a Web site and they give you a space on that site to start a blog.

What you are essentially doing is giving away fantastic, fresh and original content to another Web site, which they use to keep their rankings up. Instead, you want to be sure that you are writing on your own blog which is installed on your own Web site. That way you get to reap the benefits of your own writing and improve the rankings of your own Web site.

Here are some great examples for a blog, depending on what industry you are involved with:

- Do you own a hair salon? Make your blog the go-to place for learning about hair tips and tricks, latest hair styles and how to get healthy hair.

- Do you sell clothes? Blog about the hottest trends of the season, how to pair the right shoes with the right accessories or how to spot fake designer bags.

- Do you sell SEO? Blog about easy SEO steps that the average business owner can take to improve their rankings. After reading enough posts, someone might decide to call you up and inquire about SEO services…. Hmm……

- Are you a car mechanic? Blog about the importance of car maintenance, when to change your oil and where the best car washes are around your area.

The key to blogging for the purpose of attracting potential clients involves several things. First, you need to make sure that the information or opinions that you are offering are interesting, insightful or helpful for your readers. Then you need to make sure that you are writing in such a manner that everyone can understand it, but not be bored with it. You don’t have to insert every semicolon and you don’t have to use long words. But you also don’t want to write something that may make some people think English is your second language.

Finally, don’t hesitate to drop subtle incentives for your readers to actually pick up the phone and ask questions or inquire about services. For example, if I was writing a blog post for a Search Engine Optimization company, this is where I would insert a friendly reminder that any further questions can be answered in detail by calling us at 312.794.7883. I would also remind my audience that we offer a free Web site evaluation via webinar to determine your ranking potential in search engines and to learn more about SEO.

Of course, after reading my blog post, you are anxious to get a blog of your own and start blogging! But what do you do if you don’t have a blog? You can ask your Web site developer to install a blog for you or you can give us a call and ask us what the simplest way to install a blog on your site is? We highly recommend WordPress, which is a popular (and free!) blogging platform that works well in tandem with SEO Plugins; but every site is made differently, so this doesn’t apply for everyone.

At the end of the day, you want to be sure that you are having fun with your blog and that your readers are having fun too! They should learn something new or insightful from your posts and they should possibly get a laugh or two out of it, as well. Whichever direction you decide to take your blog, just be sure to promote it like none other. Blast links from all your social media sites and have your friends or employees do the same.

Anymore questions? You know where to find me. In the meantime, happy blogging!