If you've not yet started a blog for your business, then now's the time to do so and if you're already blogging, but not very often, or have lost motivation due to lack of response, then you need to read on!
If youre not sure what a blog actually is, its basically a website where you can write short articles or posts around a theme, which doesnt just include the written word, but can include videos and photos as well. Once youve posted your content, people can interact and respond. So it allows you to write about whats happening in your business, or your life, a bit like an online diary, with ability for other people to be able to leave comments on what youve written about. What a great way for a small business to show off their expertise and create a community around their products or services at the same time!
So, why bother blogging?
This leads nicely on to this question, which weve been asked many times! Blogs have become hugely popular, and these are a few of the reasons why you need to start or continue blogging to build up your expertise online:
- They allow small businesses to have an almost instant presence on the web, and for free.
- They dont require any technical expertise to learn how to use it, most blogging providers have made it relatively easy to set up a blog and start blogging.
- They enable websites to be more interactive and for businesses to build up a community around their product or service.
- Blogging regularly will generate more leads for your business.
- Search engines love blogs and the more frequently they are updated, the more frequently search engines will visit and index new pages. This means that new posts can be found very quickly, within a few minutes, to a few hours or days.
- Blog posts can easily be shared across the social networks, making it easier for businesses to spread the word about what they do.
- A blog makes it easy for a small business to update their website on a regular basis with news or commentary, and make the site look fresh for returning visitors.
This is just a start, not including the fact that it helps build your business brand, helps your business become better known, drives traffic to your website and helps increase those all important leads & sales. In fact some bloggers have done so well thats its changed their whole career, but thats another story!
Hopefully these points will convince you that starting & maintaining a blog is a good idea. But thats where the hard work starts and is also why so many blogs fail to attract any visitors at all.
If youve yet to dip your toe in the water, you can try out blogging for free with platforms such as Wordpress.com & Blogger . They offer a variety of themes to choose from, so you can find one that matches up with your business branding. From there you just need to get used to the interface. You can experiment with it before publishing for the world to see and you dont have to tell anyone about it until youre ready.
If youve started your blog, not seen much response from it and are posting less often, then youre doing it wrong. Persistence is key – the more you post and promote your posts, the more people will come and read your posts, and then start to comment. It takes time to build a community around your blog, but then Rome wasnt built in a day!
If youre looking for more tips on blogging and how to go about promoting it, then check out our guide Get Started with Blogging (http://www.savvymarketers.co.uk/shop/get-started-with-blogging)
© Savvy Marketers, 2011
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About Savvy Marketers
Sam McArthur and Louise Barnes-Johnston are the Savvy Marketers! For a free copy of "The Ultimate Small Business Guide to Marketing via the Internet" visit: www.savvymarketers.co.uk
We offer internet marketing strategy, consultancy and training to small professional service businesses and e-commerce sites. Our combined experience and expertise covers areas including: social media marketing, search engine marketing, blogging & email marketing.
Sam
Fortyfirst
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