Blog vs. Ezine: Making the Right Choice for Your Small Business

Although hundreds of small businesses are jumping into the blogosphere, there are still options for online publishing with an ezine. Blogs allow you to interact with your customers directly, and are generally more informal than the company website. Ezines are published like newsletters, designed to inform and tackle a handful of topics at a time.

Deciding what's best for your small business involves understanding your target market and prospects; if your readers turn to you for advice and recommendations, a blog may be the best choice since you can provide a rolling list of topics for discussion. If readers turn to you just to stay informed about the industry, an ezine could be a much better choice. Here are some other differnces between a blog and ezine, and what you need to do to choose the right match for your small business:

1. Blogs can link to other websites and help you gain exposure on search engines. Every new piece of content on the blog has a chance to be shared and spread across the web. This makes it highly interactive and can increase web traffic overnight. Ezines are delivered via e-mail to interested subscribers, and can give your brand a push, but will not get much recognition on the search engines each time you publish.

2. Blogs let you archive previous entries, while ezines are a ‘static' publishing tool. Ezines are great when you want to deliver printable information for readers to carry around with them. Blogs allow you to store everything online instead, making it simple to search and find topics of interest at any given time. If you have a newsletter or ezine already, consider turning the content into a blog entry and start publishing. Almost all blog publishing platforms allow you to change the date and time of the posts so you can set yours up like a series.

3. You can setup ad programs with a blog. Blogs are interactive and up-to-the-minute, and can start to drive traffic to your main website with ease. Setting up an ad program on your blog is a great way to start earning click-through revenue or set yourself up with affiliate programs. Remember that ezine's are ‘static' for thje most part; unless you start linking out to affiliate links within your text, the chances of having readers click through is much lower.

4. Blogs allow readers to comment and share the links. Ezines can be shared via e-mail, but not every potential reader will open them; in some cases, the ezine can simply end up in the spam folder. Blogs allow readers to share links through social bookmarking sites and large distribution portals such as Digg or Techcrunch. If your topic is well-received by a larger audience, the chances of ongoing exposure are much higher.

Both blogs and ezines offer several advantages in creating a subscriber list and helping you develop a stronger brand. If you're a well-established business, an ezine can supplement your direct marketing programs with ease and you can start sending out the materials to your subscribers. If you're in the launch pahses of your small business, it can be challenging to get these subscribers in the first place-a blog can be a much better choice in generating interest and driving traffic to the site.