Why Does Every Business Need A Blog?

I promised I would blog about blogging so here goes! I know it’s an area where many people get stuck because they don’t feel confident to produce quality content for their blog.

Today let’s look at why you would want to master these skills and why you should bother to create a blog:

Blogs are cool and I believe every business should have a blog. Why? Blogs are easy to set up and maintain. They provide one of the easiest ways for you to brand you and your business online and to get free qualified traffic to your websites.

Google loves blogs and ranks them highly. Google my name and you will find my blog immediately. This builds credibility, and because of the personalised content on blogs people seem to trust the message more, and enjoy reading more than on regular websites. (Note: you must provide quality content – not bash your readers over the head with opportunities! Your readers are looking for information and solutions.)

Your blog is completely in your control. Never in the history of marketing have we had such an opportunity to personally brand ourselves and be in control of our own message without paying hundreds and thousands of dollars for the privilege. I’ll post more about which blog platforms are available and what the benefits of them are in the near future.

You can learn to make short videos, your can paste other people’s videos where appropriate, you can write articles and with all of this content you are creating back links to your websites which provide residual value and traffic. It is completely in line with doing the work once and getting paid over and over!

All of the content you produce can be re-formatted into a different delivery method so for instance you can write a 500 word article for your blog on Monday. On Tuesday you can create a short video with the same message which will appeal for more ‘visual’ types who are searching for video training. 2-3 days later you can submit your article to 5 good Article Directories. (I say that because google will rank your blog based on it being original content so you don’t want to submit the article to multiple places at the same time as you first post your blog. Do you get the power of this? Really? It means that you only have to think about this once and do a little planning and research and then you can use the same information over and over.

A Blog is interactive and is an essential part of the new Web 2.0 marketing tools. People no longer wanted to be preached to by stiff looking reporters with monotone voices on television, or shouted at in newspapers. They want to be a part of the communication and be able to talk back. They can have their voice by commenting on your blog. (You can read more about this on my previous posting about the Social Media Training with Perry Belcher)

Final point for today. Blogs are FUN! I love blogging, and contributing to the creative world that bloggers inhabit.

These are just a few of the reasons why you really might want to take advantage of blogging technology. By now you may be asking yourself, ‘Why would I not have a blog?’

If you’re concerned about writing content I will be posting some helpful tips that really helped me get to grips with writing articles and blog posts, the quick and easy way so watch this space!

If you’re thinking that you don’t have the hair or the desire to be a You Tube ‘guru’ then don’t fret. You can blog quite happily without producing your own videos if that’s not your thing. As with all of these new tools, you may find that once you master one method, the others won’t seem quite so daunting.

It’s all about baby steps and gaining confidence so as I often say you just need to get started. (If you already have a blog but are not blogging because it seems too difficult start to google some other blogs in your industry and I’m sure you’ll find that if you break them down piece by piece you can easily start to produce your own.

If you want to learn how to make videos, set up your blogs and bring the whole thing together perhaps with a funded proposal (where you monetize your list building) grab a copy of Mike Dillard’s ‘Building On A Budget.’ It’s easy to follow and contains brilliant resources and step by step guides to generating more traffic to your website without breaking the bank.