One of the questions many ask is, “Why should I have a blog? What are the benefits?”

Before we look at why a blog can be beneficial, we should first answer the question, “What is a blog?”

Before embarking on my venture to design and create blogs, I had to first understand what blogs were. A blog is really just a website, but different from a traditional static site – it is a dynamic site, constantly being updated with “posts” that are relevant to a particular subject matter (though not always limited to one subject) – whether it be services or products offered by a business, or just a personal online diary to help keep extended family informed on news, events, or special occasions.

For businesses (small or large), a blog is a very useful marketing tool – whether you’re marketing yourself as a proprietary owner of a small business, or the products/services of a larger company.

Some of the key benefits to having a blog are:

• low-cost marketing tool – the only cost is time!
• gain trust in your service/product offerings
• show your accessibility via interaction with blog comments
• generate traffic to your website
• get search engine attention (part of SEO – Search Engine Optimization)
• can serve as your primary social media portal

If you’re a small business, or even a larger business, a blog is a low-cost way to help drive traffic to your products and/or services, which in turn will potentially generate more sales. If you write articles for your blog yourself, then your only cost, really, is time, although some blogs have their posts outsourced to save them that time. Regardless of how or by whom the blog posts are written, it is a great way to discuss more details about your services and/or products, and provide a way for clients or potential clients to interact with you through comments. This interaction makes a business seem more accessible and “real” (for lack of a better term) to others, especially if you’re a small business, and helps to gain their trust in your area of expertise. They are able to ask questions that can be answered via additional comments made by the author that others can also view. Being accessible and approachable is essential to driving a successful business!

Another benefit of a blog is being able to prove your expertise in your niche, which improves your credibility. If someone feels confident in your abilities to provide the services and/or products you offer, they are more likely to hire you or buy your products (especially if it’s someone like me, who has to research for hours before deciding on making a purchase). Again, gaining trust is a key marketing factor. It can also act as a feedback forum, where people can leave comments that hint as to what you should aim for in your business to appeal to clients’ interests, or even a support forum where clients can ask questions that you can answer in commments as replies, and will be available for others to see as well. This helps both with credibility and accessibility.

A blog can be a very important tool when it comes to finding you via search engines. Consistently updating a blog puts you “on the map” with search engines, increasing your chances of ranking higher in searches using key words relating to your niche, thereby driving more traffic to your website. To do this, though, it is important to write blog posts relating to, or directly using key words from your area of expertise. This is part of what SEO (Search Engine Optimization) is about.

A blog can also be a central hub for your social media marketing strategy, which I won’t expand on here – I will save this topic for another post! Needless to say, though, social media marketing has grown exponentially over a short period of time, and is continuing to grow. Twitter is a perfect example of this! If you don’t know what Twitter is, I’m pretty sure you’ve at least heard of it! I will expand more on Twitter in a future entry… but if you’re already a Twitter user, don’t forget to follow me!

These are only a few of the benefits to having a blog. What are other benefits that a blog provides? Do you have a blog? Leave a comment below to let me know! I have the Comment Luv plugin installed, so that means when you leave me a comment and you already have your own blog, a titled link to your lastest blog post will show up with your comment! This is definitely one plugin I recommend – it helps us all share our interests! You can find it by clicking here.

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