- Everybody else is doing it.
Sometimes the common wisdom is, in fact, wise. What do you think will happen if your competitor has a strong, personable web presence and your company has only a static site that looks like it hasn’t been updated since the great Bubble-popping of 1999? Well, nothing. And that’s exactly what you should be afraid of. Businesses without a big footprint on the web aren’t likely to hang around much longer, in this world where phonebooks and Chambers of Commerce and even brick & mortar storefronts are but artifacts of an age long gone. - Your product or service will improve.
Blogging actively is a great way to get better at what you do because it forces you to think laterally about what your company has to offer. You’ll find yourself doing research on topics related to your field, reading the websites and blogs of your competitors and learning from their mistakes (as well as their successes), and approaching your offerings with new insight gained from communicating with your customers on a regular basis. - You’ll like work more.
Every single time you post on your blog you’ll renew your commitment to the company, strengthening your investment in the business by approaching it from a deeply personal level. Meeting and debating with others in the industry, and sustaining relationships with your company’s biggest fans and evangelists, makes doing work less about the nitty-gritty businessy stuff, and much more about people and fostering connections. - Blogging is (practically) free.
Blogging is a wonderfully cheap and easy way to “keep your website updated” without having to call up your web designer every time you want to announce a special holiday promotion. If you’ve ever hired someone to design your site, you probably know that asking the designer to make your site easy to update alone adds a lot of development time and cost to the project. For most small business and individuals, paying for a custom Content Management System is totally unnecessary. Even using a simple, “free,” alternative CMS like Drupal or Wordpress adds substantially to the initial cost, and offers more functionality than most first-time site owners are likely to use.
If you’re at all like most small business folks, you have your plate full-to-overflowing without needing to learn the ins and outs of how to update your webpage, and certainly don’t have the time for it. Quite often, for folks with new businesses, all that’s necessary and practical is a set of static content pages outlining your product and your company and a frequently-updated blog where you can announce deals and new products, create some keyword-filled (but always relevant and helpful!) articles, and connect with your customers. And if you opt for just a blog, you don’t even have to pay monthly web hosting costs. Just be sure you hire a designer (Shameless plug: I’m available.) to get things looking professional. Few things will dampen your impact more than using a default template. Even better, if you get a good designer who cares about web standards, he or she will make it super easy to extend the scope of your website with little effort as your business grows and the money starts flowing in. - Blogging will keep you honest.
It’s all too easy to slip into the evil syntax of marketing-speak on your website and in your printed materials and this is precisely the wrong thing to do if you’re operating a small business. Nothing turns away customers faster than not-so-well-placed, and likely dishonest, “Number One In America Blue Ribbon Ultra Edition Highest ROI Billions Served Daily Bigger Than Amazon.” Having a blog helps you avoid these demons, because your customers and competitors and friends in the industry will no doubt call you out in the comments or on their own sites anytime you resort to such puffery. After a bit of time and effort and honesty, you’ll find the perfect blend of personality, approachability, and authority in your blogging voice.
5 Reasons Your Business Should Blog
You should blog. Yes, you should. Especially if you have a business. There really aren’t any reasons not to, but here are some less-common reasons why it’s an absolute must.
