First of all, what is a blog? Wikipedia basically says a blog is a web site that allows regular commentary and feedback from the readers of the blog. There are multiple reasons people would blog, for our purposes we are going to concentrate on how it can help your small business.
Basically your blog is another tool for communicating with customers (or potential customers) and/or employees to share your knowledge and/or expertise. Before you write your first blog do a bit of research for blogs on similar topics to what you plan on writing. Go to google, bing, or yahoo and search for your topic of choice. For fun, search for “Frying pan blog.” You can further filter the search by clicking on the “more” down arrow (left side of window) and then selecting “Blogs.” Now read away.
Now that you know more about frying pans, let’s get started on your first blog. First you need to select the service you are going to use. That can be a bit daunting. Here is a fine blog that is a good place to start. I just switched from GoDaddy’s Quick BlogCast to WordPress.
Now that you are signed up for some sort of blogging software, let me suggest your first topic. “The purpose of your blog.” Basically, introduce yourself, and what you plan on doing with your blog. This can be short. Now, your second blog should be on anything that you think might be helpful to at least one person. How often you blog depends on you, but I would recommend at a minimum of once per month.
A few final tips. Make sure you have a catchy title. Come up with 5 or so keywords for each blog. Spell check. Have a link to your blog from your business website. And finally, have fun with it.
So YES, you should definitely blog for your business. Take the first step and go for it.
(First published 2/5/2011)