I’ve been a fan of Blogging for a few years now and I continue to think it’s a great marketing tool for business. Of course not all blogs are for business, but for the purpose of this article I am talking business blogs! Most people I talk to these days understand what a blog is but many still are not quite sure how it could work for their business.

Before I give some examples of how a real business could use a blog, I just want to point out that a blog is really just a website where the blogger can easily publish their own content as often (or as little) as they like. They don’t need to know how to build a website, create code or anything complicated. Their blog allows them to log-in and add content including words, images, video and audio. Once they’ve added the content they can publish it instantly for the entire world to view.

I wrote an article in 2008 about how I suspected Blogging would gain popularity in coming years and it looks like that has proven true. And this will continue, of that I am sure.

So why would you want a Blog?

The top three reasons (aka Benefits) are:

1) As a business owner a blog allows you to have a conversation with your target market, and allows your readers to comment on what you are writing about and interact with you.

2) Other bloggers and social media participants are also more likely to link to blog content than to a website. This often translates to more people visiting your blog and learning about your business offerings.

3) Did I mention that search engines LOVE blogs? Yep Google is a big fan and has a tendency to rank blog content high in results.

Some Business Blogging Ideas

OK so I promised some examples of how different business types could use a business blog;

A finance advisor: You’ll be writing about many different finance topics and giving tips, ideas and sharing resources to help your clients (& prospects) with their finance needs. You’ll link to, share and comment on relevant industry news and events, showing that you keep yourself educated and up to date and that you are a trusted source of information. If you write regularly on your topic Google will index your blog content and your chances of being found on a Google search will increase. If your content is good and proves to be helpful and interesting it may be shared on social networks like Twitter and Facebook and bring you even more website visitors.

A business coach: You’ll be writing about business topics that are of interest and helpful to your clients – things like business planning, time management, pricing, marketing. You’ll provide your own personal insights and opinions on best practices and simple tips to help your clients and prospective clients. You’ll share, link to and comment on relevant articles and blog posts on other websites. This will allow readers to both learn from you (& see you as the expert) but also to get to know you as a person and a coach and thus either attract them to you (or not!).

A hairdresser: to be honest there are not many hairdressing blogs about but my take on how this could work would be that you could include a lot of visuals – images of your work so that visitors can see how fantastic you are and whether you’re the type of hairdresser they are looking for. You could comment on, share and link to other websites and blogs with great hair content (or not so great content). You could attract attention because of your insightful comments and increase your online client network and really get people talking about you. A long waiting list could be the end result of a keen hairdresser who takes on blogging seriously!

But will I be giving away too much?

Honestly these days that is just not a concern. On google you can find an answer to just about anything and the chances are that the tips and information you share are not unique to you. Ideally though, you want those that read your blog to get to know, like and trust you so that your blog becomes a preferred source of information for them. What you share on your blog will never replace the product or service that you provide to your clients. However it will help to build that all important relationship with your prospects and ultimately build their desire to become a client!

What industry are you in? Leave a comment below if you think a blog could work for you or if you already have a blog let me know how it works for you. If you are skeptical let me know your industry and I’ll see what ideas I can come up with!

How to get started…

One of the benefits of blogging is that it allows you to express your opinions so here is mine. I wouldn’t go past WordPress as your blogging platform. It truly is the most flexible and the easiest to use blogging software by far. There are hundreds of plug-ins that can give it even more advanced or specialised functionality making it the only choice in my opinion.

If you’d like to learn how easy it is to create and manage your blog in WordPress you can read more about our brand new program Website Mastery here.

Share and Enjoy!

•