We’ve posted before on “How a Web Page Can Make Running Your Small Business Easier,” and if you followed that advice and created a web presence, then you might think that your work is finished. But not so fast! When is the last time you updated the content on your website? Has your website caused people to email you with questions about certain aspects of your business? Or do you feel that your website isn’t working for you like you hoped it would? If so, then you just might need to take your small business website to the next level and create a blog.
Not sure what a blog is? The term “blog,” is short for “web log” and you are reading one right now. Blogs are generally a series of posts grouped around one topic (and that topic can be anything – from endangered species to photography to ancient Egypt.) Each post is generally anywhere from a couple hundred to about a thousand words and readers are encouraged to leave comments and discuss the contents of the post.
The main difference between a blog and a web site is that a web site is static – it conveys information one way, from you to your web visitor – while a blog is dynamic. In other words, blogs allow you, as the blogger, to interact directly with your readers. As a small business owner, how great would it be to be able to interact with your clients and potential clients in an informal way? If you have a website, you probably see visitors coming by every day, but it can be difficult to find out what they are looking for or if they found it. A blog allows your visitors to leave feedback, questions, concerns and sometimes even criticism, but no matter what they say (or often, don’t say – you might receive one comment for every 50 blog readers), they are interacting with your business in a more meaningful way than if they simply read the contents of your website.
The main advantage of a blog is that it helps you, as the small business owner, establish your credibility in your field. Pretend you are a customer and you are searching for a local entertainer for your child’s birthday party. You have found two entertainment companies that you like, but you want to make sure that your child will get the best experience possible. Company A simply has a static webpage listing rates, years of experience in the entertainment field and a few testimonials. Company B, though, has a blog where the business owners talk about everything from “10 Theme Parties Kids are Sure to Love” to “The 8 Steps We Take to Background Check Our Entertainers.” Company A and Company B could be nearly identical in their business practices, but Company B has a distinct advantage over Company A because they have provided the potential customer with more proof of their professionalism and credibility.
Blogs also provide another advantage to small businesses – search engine optimization (SEO). Many people think SEO and automatically associate negative practices such as “keyword stuffing,” but SEO is much more complicated than that. SEO is really just the practice of making your site relevant enough that search engines feel confident pointing searchers to your site when they search particular keywords. In other words, everybody wants their business on the first page of Google and other search engines, and a blog can make that happen. One thing search engines like is fresh content, so if you host a frequently-updated blog on your company’s website, search engines will hoist you in their ranks. And adding fresh content is just one of many ways that a blog can assist with your small business website’s SEO.
If you decide to start a blog, keep in mind that blogs represent a time commitment. Just as with email marketing, it’s easy to start strong with a blog and then run out of ideas or get caught up with other work. Set a sustainable expectation when it comes to how often and how thoroughly you will be able to post on your blog.
Outright is secure.
What do you think?
Do you blog for or about your business?
What tangible benefits have you seen from blogging?
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Yes, and nothing at all. Seems like a private journal space to me.
Posted Jul 27, 2010 8:25:29 PM by: Dollar Keeper Accounting
1
Just getting started though? Is this your blog? Quick tip: it looks like you are using WordPress; set your permalinks (under settings) to remove the date from the web address for your posts. Replace it with category. Setting should be something like this: %category%/%post%
Long story about SEO to explain why, short reason is, the longer your web addresses, the poorer they perform.
With that done, best advice is put a link to your blog everywhere. Not necessarily because people will see it and click through, you do it because Google will see it. The more links to your site/blog, the better (add it to your profile here for example).
Final thought, it took a good year before my blog started getting meaningful traffic. Then it got so busy I couldn't keep up!
Posted Jul 27, 2010 11:51:57 PM by: Paul O'Brien - Outright