What’s the deal with blogging?

February 14, 2007

From a recent subscriber email:

"I keep reading how I should be blogging to promote my small business, but I don’t understand why an online diary will help me. Before I waste a bunch of time setting this up, can you please explain something to me - what’s the deal with blogging anyway?"

While it is true that an online journal or diary can be considered a "blog", this is not the entire definition. A web log (or "blog") is a collection of information organized in some way. Some blogs are organized by category or topic, some are sorted by date, and some use a combination of these two (like we do). Most blogs today have a way of subscribing to them through RSS feeds (a method of delivering content across mediums without style information), such as the Feedburner links that appear on the right side of this post.

What are some unexpected uses of a blog?

A headline news feed, like CNN
A daily dose of gossip snippets, like Celebrity Baby Blog
A collection of informative articles, like Creature Teachers
A method for discussing technology, like Slashdot
A place to announce products and post reviews, like CNET’s Crave

Now that we have expanded your knowledge on what a blog is, let’s get back to the original question: Why is blogging good for small businesses? Well, establishing a blog and frequently updating it can:

Increase your rank on search engines
Draw traffic to your site
Give you an outlet to communicate regularly with your customers
Help you keep your customers informed of new products or services
Create ongoing relationships with your customers (which helps increase return sales!)
Help you establish yourself as an expert in your field
Generate buzz about your company and create some organic marketing
Help you attract new employees as your business grows

I hope this helps make the whats and whys of small business blogging more clear. We’ll certainly be discussing this topic more in future posts.

Filed Under Marketing, Technology and Websites
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