Updated: Feb. 2015
Often times, to a business, a blog may have an undeserved negative connotation. By now, most of us are aware that it is no longer exclusively for teens to hobnob about their weekend events. Blogging has become a powerful Digital marketing and business tool, when used properly.
How to Start Blogging
Perhaps a blog on your site still makes you a little squeamish. Do you prefer a newsletter, events page, industry articles section, or a press release section? Well, in all honesty, a blog can act as all of these. While it may take some time to properly implement a blog on your domain with the same look as your site, there are quite a few blogging services that are free, including Blogger and WordPress. Both these services offer article categorization, archiving, and handfuls of other goodies to turn a blog into a dynamic business tool.
Posts can be archived by category and date, or searched. Users can subscribe via an RSS feed. Have an upcoming event? Create a short blog post. Something important happen to change your industry? Write about it. Take $100 from Larry Bird in a golf outing? Write a blog. While your company environment may dictate the nature and scope of blog posts, it certainly can be used as a less formal way to communicate with your customers.
Before taking on a blog, consider:
1. Is there somebody at the company who writes?
If there isn't somebody or a group of somebodies to cultivate the blog, it will never reach its potential. It may be in your companies best interest to rely on trained and skilled content writers to create informative and interesting articles for your site. Having unprofessional writing on your website can be more damaging than not having any at all.
2. Do you have patience?
A post may not shoot to the top of Google. However, original, industry specific articles and posts are good ways to strengthen your site. It builds out the total number of pages and keeps the site current. Google does look to see if sites are continuously adding fresh and relevant content for customers and takes this into consideration for ranking results.
3. Don't blog angry.
Matt Cutts, who leads the web spam team at Google and works in the search quality team, once posted about blogging angry. It is always smart to consider your audience, re-read your blog post and understand that once it's posted and indexed, it is public - forever. Sometimes jokes do not translate in type form. If your blog is open for comments, be ready to field some...in a professional and respectful manner. Blog fights may not be the best for business.
If you're not sure what to blog about, choosing a trending topic in your industry or something your customers would find useful about your business. If blogging seems like a good opportunity for your business, commit yourself. Staying consistent will keep readers interested and keep your business fresh on their mind. Re-read and have somebody else read your posts before you push them live.
Sales & Marketing Technologies recommends some type of content creation strategy for all of our clients. It is essential to search engine optimization efforts nowadays. Not to mention, you can take that content and use it for other marketing efforts such as email newsletters, social media posts, and whitepapers. For more information about our Digital marketing services, contact us today or call at (407) 682-2222.