If you’re trying to establish your business online, one of the best ways to do so is to start up a blog. Not just a blog posting whatever strikes your fancy at the time, of course, but a blog dedicated to your industry. This can not only help your business get found online, through web searches and referral links, but can also help you to become an authority among your clients, peers and industry as a whole.
A blog is your first and best chance to get found online via multiple channels. As stated, using the appropriate terms and topics in your blog posts can help people find you through a common web search. Likewise, building your authority within your industry will inevitably lead to other companies and blogs linking back to your most relevant posts for their own clients’ reference and research.
Having a blog for your business offers clients, present and future, the opportunity to better understand what you do, who you are and why you’re the best choice in the industry. According to Forbes, this is just one of the nearly countless reasons every business online needs to have a blog with a regular posting schedule. The standard is to post something new at least once a week, but if you’re just starting out online then a couple posts per week are an excellent idea to build interest and create fresh, live content for your new site.
Now, this brings up the question of how to appropriately market your blog. To maintain search engine rankings you’ll want to check out the competition and see what they post about the most; do keyword research and find out which terms get good traffic without too much competition, or hire a pro to do it for you. You can also reach out to other industry leaders for input, thereby (eventually) putting you on their radar. This doesn’t mean a weekly email, of course, but the occasional ping to the more communicative leaders of your industry can make a huge difference.
However, as stated by Entrepreneur.com, while blogs are low-cost even if you outsource the content creation, they can require a great deal of discipline to maintain and market effectively. The content you post must be valuable to your business and your industry, and that value needs to be particularly obvious to your target audience. You also need to be able to update regularly, as stated; if you personally can’t manage at least one post per week, getting the help of a service or independent professional specializing in content marketing and reputation management is the best way to make sure you always have live content on your website.
The benefits of maintaining a blog for your business far outweigh any costs you could incur. Getting yourself positioned as an expert in your field, keeping open communication with your clients and encouraging the building of communication and a sense of community among your colleagues and customers are all benefits getting your blog up and running could bring your business. Getting started is simple, easy and economical, so don’t wait any longer!
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This is great advice & was my initial reason for starting my blog. The question I have however is, should I be writing my blogs on my business website, or write on a platform like WordPress & then link the blog to my website. This part has always confused me.
Also, thanks for this information & bringing it to the attention of new entrepreneurs.
Hey there! As far as putting them on your website, it really depends on how your website is setup. If you are just creating pages on your website for every new article, this will work, but it makes your process more cumbersome then using a blogging platform. If your website is a custom developed site, you should be able to use API’s to WordPress, and this will allow you to insert a blog into your website. Making your life a lot easier. I hope this helps!