Why every business should blog
1. visibility – Blogging bigs up your visibility with search engines. Regular posts keep your site fresh. They encourage return visits by search engine bots. Your blog’s style, tone and content give readers a valuable insight into what it’s like to work with you.
2. credibility – Quality posts will boost your credibility within your markets and industry sector. When there’s a choice, people prefer to buy from businesses who know what they’re talking about. Blogging can help you become a ’thought leader’ in your field. And because the media like to talk to thought leaders, it can result in wide-ranging publicity.
3. flexibility – Blogging is instant. Meaning you can react to market news, views, threats, controversies and developments fast. And sneak one past your competitors! You don’t have to write loads. Just write something useful, informative, entertaining and relevant.
4. economy – Blogging’s cheap. Free templates let you set up a blog from scratch in a couple of hours. If you bolt your blog onto your existing site you won’t need to buy another domain. If you write it yourself, you won’t need to employ a writer.
5. competition – If your competitors aren’t blogging, you can pull steadily ahead. If they are, your blog will help you keep pace, differentiate and re-position your business, offers, services and products.
As always there are a few common sense caveats:
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If you can’t write, don’t write. Poorly written stuff does more harm than good
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Exercise common sense when deciding what to say and how to express it. Don’t say anything on your blog that you wouldn’t say to a customer
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Remain professional
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Keep at it. The benefits of blogging are neither magic nor instant – a blog takes a while to bed in
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Be consistent in your attitudes and ideals. Otherwise you’ll disconcert people
Update Sept 2014: These days blogging sits at the heart of every good digital marketing strategy, a tactic used by billions of businesses to keep their websites fresh, win friends, influence people and keep search engines happy. That’s why every business should blog.
