You can look at blogging in two ways – like trying to keep a diary when you were young; in which you wrote furiously through most of January with the best of intentions but by February you were too busy and by March it was completely forgotten about. In simple terms, an annoyance. Or, you can treat blogging as a powerful marketing tool that helps build your brand, your customer base, links to your site and unique content which can only help your website perform better in natural Search.
Adding a blog to your business website is a simple procedure for any web developer and the quality and customisation options from the big players such as Tumblr, Wordpress and Blogger leaves very little need to develop your own blog platform.
Blogging helps:
Brand building – your blog, can become a destination for industry professionals and journalists as well as customers who want to know the latest information. Writing in a certain style can attract readers, but writing with authority is key.
New Customer Acquisition – a well-written blog that’s quoted on other sites, linked to, referred or recommended will attract eyeballs and inevitably new customers for your product or service
Customer Retention – Offering an RSS feed allows existing customers to stay abreast of your views and news, keeping your business in their radar and the value-added nature of a blog instils goodwill
Reputation/Search Results – as you discovered in the SEO posts last year, performing well on natural Search relies heavily on your website’s content, visibility and reputation. Regular blogging answers all three – your website will gain unique content, which in turn results in more inbound links which in turn leads to improved reputation.
If you take the step to include a blog on your website remember to update regularly. By default your blog posts are date stamped; a gap of a few weeks or even months looks bad. If you set yourself target, be sure to stick to it.
Don’t oversell through your blog – this isn’t the media to push products or service, treat it as a way to pass comment or observations. By all means include links to products or services, but use an original angle in the blog and try to inform customers rather than overtly trying to sell to customers.
