Are Your Blogging For Business?

Blogging is one of the hot topics in web marketing today. The number of business blogs is exploding.

CEOs of large companies are blogging. Lee Scott of Wal-Mart shares his thoughts on an internal blog called "Lee's Garage." John Mackey, at Whole Foods, writes a public blog aimed primarily at customers.

At most companies, though, it's not the CEO who's blogging. Instead, staff or hired writers turn out blog post after blog post. That's because there are some very good reasons for your business to have a blog.

Blogs help you build links to your site. Search engines love blogs because blogs are a source of fresh new content. They'll find your blog and follow your links.

Blogs have staying power. Because they're on the web, they don't get flushed like old email. Unless you get rid of content, it will always be there, with the newest content on top.

Blogs have legs. Thanks to something called Really Simple Syndication (usually called "RSS") it's easy to get your blog out there where it can be found and read. The best part is that you don't have to spend a lot of time figuring out how to do this. Most blogging software has the RSS feature built right in.

Blogs are flexible. Use your blog to share your point of view. Use your blog to tie your promotion strategy to current events. Use your blog for discussion. Use your blog as a way to gather customer tips about using your product or service.

What's Involved?

Before you run right out and start blogging, consider what's involved. What may be easy for a big company with a marketing department could be more difficult for a small or mid-sized business.

Somebody's got to write the blog. That somebody can be you or your staff or a hired writer, but someone's got to sit down and crank out blog posts.

Blog posts can be short, even as short as 100 to 250 words. But they should be frequent. Most successful bloggers are posting at least a few times a week.

This is very important. If you don't think you can create at least a couple of good blog posts every week, this won't be a good tool for you.

Great blog posts seem to fall into three groups. One group is made up of pointers to information.

One background check company, for example, tells blog readers about legislation and news stories related to employee or tenant screening. There's a link to a news story, trade journal, association, or government site where more information can be found.

Other successful bloggers answer questions. These are a bit like "Dear Abby" for business problems. The questions you answer will depend on your business.

Somebody's got to post the blog. This is pretty easy. Most blogging software handles the coding and syndication. But someone still must be responsible for entering the copy into the software and clicking the buttons that need to be clicked.

Somebody's got to promote the blog. Every time you post a new entry, someone has to let the search engines know they're new material for them to check. The good news is that services like Feedburner make this a task that only takes a couple of minutes.

One more thing. It takes time for a blog to be successful. For most business bloggers it takes a year to a year and a half.

Blogs can help you build interest and web traffic. But they aren't magic. Make sure you have the time and the will to make them work.