Some industry commentators believe blogging might be “dead”. They suggest that people who didn't begin a blog three or four years ago have missed the boat. This may be true in small part for individuals wishing to make themselves heard in a competitive market sector such as sports or technology. However, small, medium and even large businesses still have the opportunity to use blogs to their advantage.
Using a popular blog platform such as Typepad or Wordpress means that your blog can inform search engines whenever you add a new post. This helps your content to be visible to search engine users far quicker than if it were simply uploaded onto your company web site.
Additional “plugins” (often available freely online) can add extra functionality to your blog automatically creating sitemap files, adding important meta data and creating friendly URLs, all key ingredients that can improve how regularly and thoroughly a search engine indexes your content.
So the killer question is, if you started a blog today how could it benefit your business?
Links from your blog can help your traditional web site
This can occur in two main ways.
Firstly, the posts on your blog can point visitors to key product or service areas of your site. This can be done in a fairly blatant manner, “we've just launched a new product” but this type of post should be mixed in with opinions, articles, general news and any other content you feel is relevant and your audience may want to hear about.
Secondly, links from your blog to your traditional site will be picked up by search engines who count them as a positive 'vote'. This can help your traditional site to appear higher in search engine rankings if done properly.
Ideally you should either purchase a new domain name for your blog or have it as an addition to your current domain name. Using an online blog service such as Blogger or the hosted version of Wordpress will mean that your blog never truly 'belongs' to you.
A blog allows you to connect with your customers
As a small or medium sized business you should be excited about the prospect of speaking directly to your target audience through the medium of a blog. You’ll be able to discuss ideas for new services, improvements to current practices, explain business decisions and even apologise if mistakes are made.
Research from Forrester shows that business blogs are typically trusted less than a blog written by an individual. However, this shouldn't put you off thinking about blogging. As long as you write your posts in an honest and transparent manner this will allow visitors to see the human side of your business and will hopefully result in a greater degree of trust.
A good example of a business blog that represents a small business is English Cut written by Thomas Mahon, a bespoke Saville Row tailor.
He discusses what’s happening in the industry, makes comment on news relevant to his business and gives advice freely.
A great example of business blogging is his post about 'bespoke tailoring' and how bespoke suits compare to off the peg suits, it's giving free advice to the reader but also giving them a gentle push towards his services.
At the end of the day it’s your business so you know what you’re talking about and when that’s the case people will always want to read what you have to say.
If you’d like more advice please call one of our consultants on 0845 058 9050 who’ll be happy to discuss blogs and the benefits of blogging with you.