Blogging

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There have been a lot of discussions about whether a business website should or should not have a blog.

Those who believe that a business website should not have a blog often use one simple argument: “I don’t have time to blog” I truely believe that blogging should be considered as one of your marketing tools.

For obvious reasons, content marketing is a MUST and therefore, you should make time for blogging. These 7 main reasons why your business website should have a blog:

1. The new e-mail newsletters

You probably already write your newsletter at least once a month. Just consider blog articles as newletter articles because blogs are the new email newsletters. Almost everything that could go in your newsletter can go in your blog. You can still send the content out by e-mail, and readers can subscribe to your blog to get posts by e-mail.

In fact, a blog is better than a newsletter because readers can join and participate the dialogue in regard to your blog articles. Further more, readers will be able to read older articles that would otherwise be in a deleted newsletter. Best of all, each blog article will provide lasting benefit because it is a web page that can be optimized and indexed.

2. Socialize your brand

Blogs offer an opportunity for a business or organization to present its insightful, helpful and thoughtful side. Through a blog, your target audience will get a sense of the people, culture and vision of your business.

Blogs also offer an opportunity to provide a personal touch to your business. Blogs can socialize your brand.

3. Gain visibility

Each thoughtful articles on your blog is a public demonstration of your personal integrity and professional insights. You don’t have to refute one of Einstein’s theories to gain respect.

If you write about a summary of recent trends in your field, or a reply to a recent news article can be extremely effective blog articles.

4. Engage customers in a dialogue

Having a blog also gives your readers an opportunity to engage in a dialogue and give their comments on each blog article. Those who leave a comment on your blog may be sales leads, or they may just challenge or support your views.

Either way, comments usually creates more comments, and you will soon be at the center of dialogue with your existing and potential customers/partners.

5. Each blog article is an SEO opportunity

It is no secret that a lot of people are searching online for a lot more of random things. You can not realistically optimize your site for every search term, but you can certainly write blog articles targeting niche keyword phrases that are likely to draw highly qualified prospects.

Write a reaction about a particular speech in your field at a local seminar. You may not draw much natural search traffic, but there is a good chance that your blog will rank well very soon for searches like “field + seminar + speech + city”, and those visitors may be highly interested in your reaction to the speech.

6. Updated content equals to better website

Google and some other search engines will periodically crawl websites searching for new and updated content. Generally, it is better to have Google crawl your website as often as possible.

Websites that get crawled more often have more frequent updates. If you blog regularly and consistently, it ensures that there will be new and updated content on your website.

7. Blogs as link bait

Lets be realistic that there are very few websites or bloggers will link to the “products and services” page on a business website. People usually don’t link to business or corporate advertisements. On the other hand, a good blog article is an field-specific insight that are interesting, informative and not overly business or sales-focused.

It means that more links equals to better search engine rankings, which also can be translated as more site traffic equals to more sales leads.