Mar 20

Blogging offers large and small businesses numerous benefits. Search engines love blogs, your blog is your voice, it makes social network marketing easier, a blog increases traffic to your site, and a blog makes you think about your industry.

 

The top (5) five reasons to start a blog for your business

Just like every big idea starts with a simple action, the basis for small business social networking success is by starting simply. And as we've mentioned before, in prior blog posts, the perfect way to start social network marketing is to add a blog to your website. The benefits are numerous.

 

1) Search engines love blogs

Google and other search engines love content. After all, search engines want to return relevant answers to queries and display the most helpful results. And while merely having a blog won't guarantee you first page results, not having one will certainly make it harder to achieve. Create well written and informative blogs that are relative to your industry and business and it's almost guaranteed you'll appear in searches by prospects and customers. Sound preposterous? It's not. If you write about what you know and do (i.e., your business) you'll touch upon topics of interest to your audience. And your blog will no doubt be returned in their search results.

 

2) A blog is your voice

Your blog is a mechanism for sharing your thoughts, your opinions, your inspirations, and your expertise. Product pages, brochures, and corporate speak under your about us are usually dull, drab, and feature oriented. But in a blog you can be more spontaneous, more conversational and more relaxed. You can respond to an industry crisis or comment on the state of business. You can help to educate and illuminate. You can talk about your business or not. It's completely open and that's the power - because you can be topical and interesting. You can establish your knowledge and expertise and become a resource to others.

 

3) Your blog makes social network marketing simpler and more effective

Social networking is all about creating a conversation about something - your industry, your business, or related topic. The hope? That others will find what you think and/or write interesting. Well, that's what you're doing in a blog. You're creating regular conversations that will hopefully inspire further discussion. Write a blog and then share it on the various social networking sites and you can start to see what others find interesting enough to share and talk about.

 

4) It can increase traffic to your site in the short-term and in the long-term.

When your latest blog post goes live and is then shared across your social networks you'll generally see a small spike in traffic. Post something that's highly interesting and you can see a big spike. But even the most interesting topic logarithmically declines in popularity. Then a very interesting thing happens. Search engines begin to resurrect your blogs. Long-tail searches and sometimes inbound links start to provide a second life. Blog long enough and you'll eventually encounter an inquiry that indicates the referral source is a blog post you'd forgotten.

 

5) It makes you think about your business and industry.

Writing a blog makes you consider what you do, why you do it, and how you do it. Introspection, reflection and contemplation all help you expand your knowledge and understanding of your business, your industry, and where you and your business fit in. And of course you'll be forced to educate yourself and read the opinions of others too. And as you do research for your blogs or for blog ideas you'll expand your mind and discover new knowledge. 

 

If you're going to blog, blog regularly

Start writing a blog today and in short order you'll be enjoying the business benefits of blogging. Blogging might be the single most cost-effective method of marketing your business. But be warned. If you're going to start blogging, you have to commit to it. You can't start writing a blog then stop - it's a horrible mistake. From the visitors perspective, they'll think your business has grown stale or worse, and they'll be left wanting. And the benefits of continual blogging will be lost also. Remember, content is king, but the content must be fresh.

 

And if you're wondering if blogging can really help? Well, you're reading this blog post aren't you? How did you find it?