WordPress why you should use it for your business

Mike Paetzold's Blogs

Is a blog right for your small business?

More and more small businesses are considering using a blog to promote their business. A blog can be used in a variety of ways.

Here are just a few

Get the word out to your customers about your services and products

An easy way to keep your employees updated

A way to allow interaction from your customers or employees

There are a few advantages and a few pitfalls to be aware of before you start. It is important that you lay out a plan and decide what the purpose of your blog will be. Decide how often it will be updated and keep to it. Blogs that aren't updated on a regular basis lose their advantage.

You may need more than one blog because the tighter the focus your blog has - the more effective it will be. Keep your blog on topic and don't allow it to range far and wide with your topics just because you can. If you want to stray from your major topic you may want to consider creating another blog on that topic.

The big advantage of a blog is the ease of use and the ability to be interactive. At the same time that interactivity needs to be controlled to keep your blog on track. Your blog needs to maintain a consistent purpose. Unfortunately, not all comments will add to the conversation you are creating on your blog so make sure you control the comments.

Worry less about the technology and more about the purpose for your business. Now if you are in the music business then adding sound clips and video may serve your purpose. Don't just add technologies because they are available add them because they improve the conversation.

Remember, that blogs are a conversation. Consider that when posting and adding content.

In summary - If you take the time to plan out your blog's purpose, how often it will be updated and schedule the time necessary to achieve this, you will find a blog can be a valuable asset to your overall business plan.

If you are not willing or able to do this then you will be disappointed with the results you receive from your blog.

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WordPress Questions and Answers

More ways to get more blog comments
I have been focusing on blog commenting for the last few posts. It started with 3 ways to get more comments and I wanted to add to that list from my own experiences and from some of the comments that were left. Doug Champigny wrote The only one I can think of you didn’t include here [...] - 27 hours ago
Finding Blogs To Comment On
I have been discussing comments for the last few posts and today lets talk about finding blogs to comment on. Now there are lists and various posts showing you exactly which blogs are do follow and some people swear by those. If all you are looking for is back links maybe that makes sense but not [...] - 2 days ago
Commenting on other blogs
One of the ways to get more traffic, backlinks and to participate in the blogosphere is to comment on other blogs on your topic. Taking part in the conversation allows you to get your name and link on another blog. Someone reading the blog there may click and follow through to your blog if your comment [...] - 3 days ago
Protecting your blog from comment spam
Yesterday we discussed 3 ways to get more comments and today we need to talk about the flip side – Protecting your blog from comment spam. The first step in this process for me is to use two plugins to help with this. Askimet – comes with the WordPress installation WP Spam Free Now there are numerous others [...] - 4 days ago
3 Ways To Get More Blog Comments
After the light bulb from Alex Syseof’s blog post that we discussed yesterday I realized it had been a while since we looked at commenting. So this will be part of a series on blog comments. Getting More Blog Comments Make it easy Sorry if I go to your blog with a few rare exceptions and you make [...] - 5 days ago

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WordPress 2.5 - Really surprised this time

Well my hat is off to WordPress on this one. So far in limited testing this has been one of the best upgrades I have been through and there have been quite a few.

Have not yet found any plugin incompatibilities and really think the new interface is much more intuitive.

Now I have not tested the WYSIWYG as I rarely use it but will be later this week.

The update to plugins is a nice feature but I have had a few upgrades that did not work out but most have. It may be a minor glitch on my server too so it will take more testing.

Feel that this seems to be stable for new blogs and have used it for a couple with no problems but have not started upgrading my older blogs.

After using this for thelast month or so 2.5 has been the most stable new upgrade in quite a while with very few problems.