In the era of internet, online presence of businesses is considered low. Blogging is one of the easiest ways to tap into that endless market, and improve their business and profits. What sets blogging apart from other types of websites is the appearance of content. It is presented on page in the form of posts. Blogs are also updated more frequently that normal websites, in return creating a reason for a visitor to come back again. So why should businesses have a blog?
Blogging offers some compelling advantages. Many more people are blogging because there are real benefits to it.
Brand awareness
A blog gives a business an opportunity to communicate their brand image to consumers. Customers consistently seeing business brand develop a sense of security and stability, in effect building strong loyal relationship. A blog with many post creates such an opportunity, exposing visitors to your brand message.
Reputation management
A blog enables businesses to communicate in more informal and personal style than business website. Visitors will quickly build strong relationship and trust. The more they trust your brand , the more likely they are to visit your website and actually purchase your products.
Business differentiation
If done properly, blog can set you apart, and possibly superior to your competition. Through blogging you can show the benefits of services and products and what sets them apart from others.
Biggest market
Business having an online presence are exposed to the biggest possible customer base with unlimited profit opportunities. Blogging allows you to reach potential customers without any time or space constraints.
Search engine marketing
Search engines give more authority to blogs, due to their non-promotional nature. Content produced on blogs is informative in nature, so it's more likely to attract more natural links than promotional websites. Blogs also can be listed in blog-specific directories and RSS feed aggregation sites, gaining even more backlinks. Search engines also value blogs for frequency of updates and content freshness. In the times of real-time search results it's a huge advantage over traditional websites.
Direct communication
Over time blogs build up readers base that subscribe to RSS feed or email updates, because they are interested in what your business have to say. Every time a new article is published, it is delivered to those readers, giving you the ability to communicate directly with them.
Blog also serves as a portal for customers opinions and discussion about your products and services.
Lead generation
Because blogs generate additional visitors and better search engine rankings, it creates additional opportunity to generate more leads.
Simple, low cost solution for online publishing
Blogs are inexpensive to set up, operate and maintain. Blogging platforms are available as a free hosted solutions, most of them works perfectly of cheap shared hosting too. Blogging software is also very intuitive to use, so there's hardly any learning curve. And there are also desktop and smartphone programs that can publish directly to a blog, making blogging virtually painless.
Positive effects on employees
When there are more people involved in business blogging, it creates a feel of a team among participants. Contributing to company web marketing and sales success raises the morale and improves working relationship.
Blogs complement ordinary website with unique opportunities for building brand awareness and online presence and impact.
Do you blog? Does you business have a blog? Please share your opinions in the comments.
