I am often still asked ‘do I really need a blog?’ Here is the answer I give…
Your business website relies on getting visitors and a blog is a great way to get visitors to your website.
Here are just a few pieces of good advice to help you get started.
Post regularly
Search engines like Google look for regular new content when ranking your site against the millions of competitors in their databases. Adding a new blog post once or twice a week is a great way of flagging up to the world that your business is still here. Sometimes that aide memoir will coincide with someone wanting to buy exactly what you are selling and as a result you could end up with a new sale/client/business contact. The more you post, the more that convergence is likely to occur, but even posting once a month or less has benefits.
Write relevant posts
If you blog ‘on-topic’ you will be adding lots of keyword-rich content to your site. No need to worrying about ‘keyword density’ and other SEO tricks on your web pages. Just concentrate on writing insightful, interesting blog posts to ensure the search engines and the world in general know exactly what it is you offer.
Gain links from other blogs
Blogs are easy to link to, so over time you will pick up lots of inbound links and trackbacks from other sites and blog directories. Inbound links are another metric the search engines use when deciding where to rank you against your competitors.
Be seen as an expert
Your blog can boost your status as an expert in your field and help engender the feelings of trust that a visitor requires in order to turn them into a customer. Trust is important. Most people buy the same brand over and over again because they trust the brand to deliver what is promised. If your business can appear more trustworthy in the eyes of your customers you will make more sales.
Blog comments are an easy way for your customers to communicate with you. They encourage conversation and allow you to keep track of what your customers are thinking. Don’t worry about ‘bad things being written on your blog’. All blogging software allows comments to be held in a moderation queue. This means you can dump offensive nonsense and where necessary solve individual’s problems before they go public.
Get your site indexed quickly
Your blog’s RSS feed will ensure Google, Bing and co will get ‘pinged’ every time you update your site. This means you can get new content indexed more rapidly.
So in summary, if you want to do all you can to help your business succeed then the straight answer is yes, you do need a blog.
Want help setting up your blog and integrating it with your website? Give us a call. It is what we do for a living.