Do I need a blog for my business?
March 31st, 2008 Posted in WordPressI was asked this question this week by one of my clients for whom I produce a couple of web sites for that have been growing steadily for a couple of years. So, I thought I would post about this question from a general point of view;
So, do you need one?
Before, you we can answer this question, we need to look at the advantages of having a blog.
- Blogs are an excellent way of getting up to date news out to your potential and existing clients. If you provide up-to-date and useful information on your blog, then you are likely to get more readers. With a good blog, you can be seen as the expert in your particular field to whom people look to for advice. If that blog is connected to your business, then this will inspire confidence in you and your product / service, which will hopefully lead to more sales / leads.
- As blogs, in general, are updated regularly, people are more likely to revisit your blog to check for new posts as opposed to checking your web site. For the more tech-savvy web user, blogs usually also provide what is called an RSS Feed. RSS Feeds are used by programs such as FeedReader, which allow users to ‘favourite’ your blog and get notified when you post something new, giving you a permentant link with your readers.
- Search Engines love Blogs! As the primary goal of search engines like Google is to provide relevant and up-to-date results, blogs, by their very nature, rank well when compared with a static web site. To give you an example, I just posted an item about updating my blog called “WordPress 2.5 Upgrade Complete”. Within 5 minutes (I kid you not), I did a search on Google to see what other people were saying on the matter, and I was already ranked 3rd on Google UK when I searched for “WordPress 2.5 Upgrade”. So, having a blog, where your competitiors do not might allow you to connect with a potential client before your compeition do!
Therefore, in answer to the question “Do I need a blog for my business?”, I suppose the answer is yes, because of the many benefits created from having a blog.
Ok, so now you know why you need a blog, what about a few tips for actually writing one;
- Most bloggers use a blog called WordPress (including myself with this blog). If you are new to the whole blogging / web design scene, you can sign up for a free blog at www.wordpress.org. There are many helpful articles on the WordPress web site and all over the internet to assist you in getting started. Alternativiely, you can ask your web designer (or me if you don’t have one :)) to set one up for you.
- You need material to post on your blog. If you have nothing relevant to say, then don’t say anything at all. If you post something that is meaningless just for the sake of it then users will lose interest and will leave (and probably never come back). Plus, if you never post anything new, then the search engines won’t be listing any new posts and you won’t be taking advantage of the extra search engine coverage you might recieve.
- A blog must be updated (providing you have something useful to say as per my previous point :p)! There is nothing that looks worse than looking at a business blog and realising that it hasn’t been updated since September 2006. In this case a blog might do more harm for your business image than it will good.
- Wiriting material for your blog takes time, if you do not have time to carry out the task of writing a blog, you could consider using the services of a Ghost Blogger, who can take the time to write relevant and well written articles for you. A useful guide for hiring a ghost blogger can be found here.
If you have any other questions about blogging, please email me or leave a comment at the bottom of this post and I will be happy to help.
Happy blogging! 
One Response to “Do I need a blog for my business?”
By Tina Russell on Mar 31, 2008
I finally decided to write a comment on your blog. I just wanted to say good job. I really enjoy reading your posts.
Tina Russell