The Business Benefits of Blogging

A few years ago you would have been forgiven for thinking that blogging was reserved for internet nerds and people who did it for the sheer love of it. But that’s not the case any more.

Today more and more businesses are starting up their own blogs, and for the webpreneur looking to establish themselves more firmly within the internet community, setting up and contributing to a blog on a regular basis can help to get them recognised as an expert in their own particular field.

There is a lot to learn if you want to make the most of your business blog. However in the early days it’s enough to simply get one up and running, and start posting regular content to it. So long as it looks respectable and it’s easy to navigate, you’ll have made a good first step into the world of business blogging.

This is something you need to figure out before you set up your blog. The best business blogs are arguably those which are closely related to the business that keeps them updated, without promoting that business too heavily within the content itself.

Your aim should be to find a viewpoint or niche within your topic that you have a real passion for, and can write about every day or two without feeling like you are struggling for something to say. Whatever angle you decide to take, your blog should complement your main website in much the same way as a side dish complements the main course. The main course is nice on its own, but with the addition of the side dish you have so many more flavors to explore. The whole thing fits together perfectly.

You should definitely link your blog to your main website and vice versa, as this will help to increase traffic to both sites and also bring in new potential customers. If you make sure that each new post you write contains relevant keywords, your blog will be found more easily by the search engines and indirectly bring more people to your website as well.

It’s worth remembering that your blog will act as the human face of your business. Blogs are by their very nature extremely personal things – they are, after all, an online diary which anyone and everyone can read. People will get to know you and your business via your blog.

This is something you need to accept before you launch your business blog, as you will need to be absolutely certain you will have the time to make regular entries and keep it bang up to date.

Here’s the thing – you might suddenly find your business gets extremely busy and you are working hard to fill orders and satisfy your customers. You’ll very likely look round to see which tasks are non-essential and could perhaps be left for a few days while you deal with the rush. Your blog may stand out as something that can be left alone for a while.

But what will the regular readers think when they visit your blog a few days in a row and find it hasn’t been updated? Instead it’s just sitting there like a ghost town in cyberspace.

What kind of message does that send out?

Once your business blog is up and running you have a real responsibility to keep it going and update it regularly. Even a quick two minute post to explain how busy things are and how hard you are working to keep up with customer demand is enough to reassure people that you and your business haven’t just disappeared for good. It also tells them how much you care for your customers.

Blogs take time, but they don’t have to take too much of it – and they can make you stand out from your competition for all the right reasons.

Isn’t it time you started one?

by Julie-Ann Amos, professional writer, and owner of international writing agency www.ExquisiteWriting.com

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