If you want people to find you online, you should be blogging. What does blogging get you? Blogging helps you grow your business in a number of ways.

1. A blog can help people get to know you and your product. Blogs make people familiar with you and that gets them to associate positive feelings with you. Familiarity builds comfort and people want to use a company they are comfortable with. Who would you rather use, a company you happened upon in the yellow pages or a company who has a blog you can read so you can get a sense of who they are?

2. A blog can demonstrate that you have knowledge in your field. Many companies use blogs to share information on the web. If you go to a photographer’s site who has a blog, you can see if they actually know what they’re talking about or if they have just happened upon a couple of pretty pictures. You can’t post your entire portfolio online, but you can blog about the experiences that you have, so your clients can trust your expertise. A good example of a blog that demonstrates field knowledge is Velocity Shots.

3. Blogs demonstrate a commitment to your industry to potential clients. A client can look at your blog and see that you are part of a community in your industry, someone who shares information and who is committed to a certain standard of excellence. Want to see this in action? Check out how many crafty mom blogs there are out there, most of which link to their etsy shops. A great example of a blog that shows industry commitment is Lil Blue Boo.

What’s the main reason people don’t blog? Most people say they just don’t have time. Well, consider this, an effective blog post is typically about 250 words. That’s (a little less than) one typed, double-spaced page. The topics you write about don’t have to be revolutionary and typically don’t require extra research. Pick topics that you know a lot about or that you already have written about in some other medium. If you’re a real estate agent, take the blurb you write to post on flier in front of a property for sale and post a blog about a “featured property”. If you’re an editor, write a post about the proper use of the semicolon. If you’re a tutor, post a lesson plan. You’re the expert, so write about what you know. Consider how writing down something that you tell clients everyday can help grow your business.

Don’t know where to start? We can help you set up a blog that matches the current look of your site.  We can even set you up with a content management system that will get you blogging like a pro!

Tags: blogging, cms, content managment system, social networking

This entry was posted on Thursday, January 21st, 2010 at 5:19 pm and is filed under blogging, cms, social networking. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.