Business Blogging: Why Everyone Is Doing It

Weblogs – or blogs, as they’re more commonly known – have been around for a few years now. So it’s only natural that they’ve become an essential part of a business’ marketing strategy – and become major game changers.

 

Blog basics
A blog is a website where users journal their thoughts, comments and philosophies. It’s updated frequently and normally reflects the views of its creator. There are few credible estimations about the number of blogs out there – so our guess is as good as any! Technorati, a blog search engine, is tracking over 112.8 million blogs. It also estimates there are more than 2 blogs created every second of every day. There’s also 1.6 million postings per day, that’s 18.6 posts per second. A large percentage of these blogs are business blogs. But why should your business have one?

Get in on the action
There are so many ways blogs can help you grow your business. Building website traffic is one massive benefit. Google and other search engines reward sites with lots of content that’s updated regularly. Blogs are also great for social networking. They are an effective, low-cost way of communicating with your customers. You can get a message out there without spending a cent!

Blog on
The biggest blunder made by businesses is to abandon their site not long after they’ve set it up – this is known as “blogicide”. To ensure the longevity of your blog you have to be committed and prepared to update it frequently. Doing your research is also key – generally the more links to interesting, related sites, the better.

Tips for starting a business blog

• Be Yourself: It’s important to create an “online presence.”
• Be Active: Update regularly and writing back to comments is an effective way of forming a relationship with your customers.
• Do Your Research: Before posting on a topic, look online for what other people have said about the issue so you can link to it. This gives your post more “grunt”.
• Consider Your Goals: What was your main motivation for starting the blog? Was it to help increase traffic to your website? Or, was it a way of forming bonds with customers? Make sure you you have your goals throughout your blogging “journey”.