Blogging is one of the single most useful things you can do to get your business noticed. People notice you and your business as an expert in your industry and you stand out in your community. Further, it gives your website (you do have a website don’t you?) activity leveraging the power of the search engines to find and display your website in their search results.
However, many small business owners fail to see the benefit of blogs. Regardless, the results speak for themselves. The dynamics of blogging help boost your online visibility.
So, with so much data in favor of blogging, why do businesses not blog? I suppose there are several, but I think there are at least three reasons.
1. Diary
Small business owners may see a blog as a diary. That’s understandable as people still use blogs that way, and that is how “weblogs,” as they were called in the day, got started. Nevertheless, blogs have become more sophisticated with elaborate publishing platforms for news publications, businesses and other organizations.
2. Time Consuming
Some business owners think they need to write a blog every day. Not so! Figure out a publishing schedule and organize topics you want to write about. Write up several posts and set the publish to specific dates. It doesn’t take too long to write up posts that range between 400-600 words. Add a compelling picture (Flickr can help!) and publish. If you make time to market your business, you can make time to blog. After all, blogging is a part of your overall marketing strategy.
3. I already have a website
Congratulations! You have definitely entered in to the internet age. My question to you is, “does anyone visit your website?” Many businesses have had well designed, pretty looking websites only to have no traffic. A website has to be optimized to get visitors, and one of the best ways is to have an active blog.
So, there you have it. What is keeping you from writing a blog? Let me know!