5 Reasons Your Business Needs a Blog

• Posted: May 10, 2010 by Stacey Abler/ Last modified: May 12, 2010

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Do you think your business website engages your customers enough on its own? Think you can get by without adding a business blog to your marketing mix?

Think again.

Blogging for your business is an extra way to connect to your customers. It not only gives you a way to put out immediate updates and news about your business, it also allows your customers to interact with you. A good blog that is updated on a regular basis can put you above the competition in the mind of your customer.

1. Search engines love blogs.

Did you hear that? Search engines will give your blog love before it gives it to your website. Why? For one, your blog content is more likely to be filled with relevant keywords about your products and services. Two, if you are doing it right, your blog is updated a lot more often than your website is. Three, it is more likely that you will gain backlinks from other sites to your blog than your website.

2. It allows customers to connect.

When you start a blog about your business, it allows your customers to see the people behind the brand. People like to interact with people, not a logo. Having the blog out there to talk about what is new, what is happening in the industry and what makes your business what it is can draw people in.

3. It can provide valuable feedback.

When you allow customers to comment on your blog posts, you can gain tremendous insight into what they believe as customers. Are they excited about the upcoming release? Do they wish a current product also had feature xyz? Are they giving high praise or complaining about your telephone support? It is a way to get the information straight from the customer in an unedited form. Studies have shown that customers who have a complaint solved by the company have a higher satisfaction rating than the customers who never had a complaint at all. Encourage feedback throughout your blog and make commenting simple.

4. It allows instant updates.

Your website may require your technical department or your web designer to make updates. Any updates that you wish to have made may need to be worked into their busy schedules. With the ease of blogging software, any one can post updates to the blog that can be published within minutes to the world. This can be invaluable in crisis communication situations as well. Let your customers know that up-to-date information is always available through your blog. Make it the news source for your business.

5. It is inexpensive.

Wordpress is free. All you need for a blog is a hosting account which will run less than $10 per month. Or you can even piggyback onto your current business hosting account making adding a blog completely free. While making updates to your website may result in hundreds, if not thousands, in charges from your web designer, making updates to a blog will only require time if it is done in-house. Even if you outsource it to a business writer, it is likely to be less expensive than web design updates.

Add a blog to your website and commit to keeping it updated with content that your customers will find useful. A few final tips:

- Insert some personality in your posts so that customers (and potential customers) can be introduced to the people behind the brand.

- Proof your posts before they are published.

- Make blogging a priority in your marketing business plan.

Related posts:

1. The Importance of Maintaining a Blogging Schedule
2. Developing Web Content For Your Business Blog