Will Blogging Help My Business?
A blog can be useful in a number of ways: it can showcase your expertise in a certain area, give a name and voice to your business and your products/services; it can provide interesting/important information about your industry to those who read it, and can generally just be a fun way of learning for those who are interested...not to mention, if utilized properly, a blog can increase knowledge of your company and increase web traffic to your main site.
For a small business entrepreneur, maintaining a blog in addition to everything else might seem like an added burden-but when done correctly, you may find blogging to be fun and informative. When creating a blog, it's important to first determine what your overall theme will be: Business advice? Politics? Technology news? Blogs I personally read deal with incorporating the lessons of yoga into one's business ventures, knitting, public relations news, and Chinese philosophy.
Creating well-written content for your blog is a necessity. One suggestion: proofread, proofread, proofread! In my opinion, nothing says 'unprofessional' quite like typos and spelling errors in any written publication. Depending on the theme you've established for your blog, you'll need to generate a list of important keywords-not only will reoccurring words drive your point home to the reader, but it can be useful for search engines that may display your blog. If you're feeling overwhelmed or unsure of what to write, don't worry too much: when beginning your blog, a minimum of one post a week is sufficient, but you'll want to increase the number of posts over time (anywhere from 2-4 posts a week).
The more knowledge you have and the more you learn over time is a resource to be shared with others; if you have important lessons learned, share them on your blog. Personal stories that readers can relate to is a great way of encouraging debate and discussion, and your responses provide a human element that large companies may be lacking. Creating a blog that promotes discussion is also a great way of generating web traffic and creating interest in your business.