7 Reasons Why Companies Should Blog
I have this discussion with clients all the time.. ” Why should we have a blog? “. It’s a good question and most customers eyes glaze over. I don’t have the time.. We don’t want to give away our company secrets..Our policy is not to use or allow Social Media… I don’t have anything to write about
Well there are 7 good reasons to start Blogging.
- It helps your SEO ( Google loves new content )
- You can engage and understand your customers better.
- You are seen as an expert in your field, a ” Thought Leader”
- Great content gets people a reason to keep coming back to your site.
- Blogs are a much more trusted source than companies press releases and official company PR.
- It moves customers to a conversion point of trusting and believing enough to buy.
- By writing you are learning.
Note: Most importantly it helps you improve your rank on search engines and assists in getting found when people enter those important key words in Google.
So if you are going to start a blog what functions and features should a blog include?
It is better to use a minimalist format ( keep it simple) and preferably a 2 column template design. And have host it on your domain that you have (do not use a wordpress or typepad domain, you want to improve your own website’s domain SEO not Typepads and have control over the site)
1. Menu to include
- About us
- Home back to your company website
2. Subscription to be via an RSS Feed and Email (and put these in top menu and right side)
3. Search feature for blogs on the site
4. Include the following at the top of each blog post so visitors can add your blog and posts to the following sites
- Digg (Over 20 million people visit this site every month)
- Reddit (Alexa rank of 664 and a Google page rank of 8.. this means one of the top sites in the world with a large number of inbound links and over 6 million unique visitors a month)
- Delicious (nearly 2 Million unique visitors per month)
- Stumbleupon (over 5 million unique visitors a month)
- Facebook ( over 250 Million subscribers)
- Twitter (No 2 Social Media site and is monitored by search engines and becoming more important for SEO)
Note: Providing these functions allows people to post your company’s blog onto sites that have millions of visits every month ( I have included some of the numbers of monthly visitors to these sites each month), also register your Blog with Technorati ( The Blog “Bible” and registry and Search Site) they have over 5 million visitors a month and will help your SEO.
5. 2 text boxes in the right panel to include
- A one sentence description of who your company is
- Your clients
6. “Connect with us Box” on right panel that includes connecting via the following means
- Subscribe to our Blog RSS
7. Multi User (allows multiple users to add posts to your company Blog)
8. Popular Posts Box
9. Browse by Tag Post Box
10 Browse by Category
As Google’s search alogorithms are in constant evolution with recency and new unique content becoming an important part of the mix, Blogging is something that your company should not ignore.
So do you think your company should be blogging?
32 Responses to “7 Reasons Why Companies Should Blog”
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I was just having this very conversation with a colleague last night. He’s new to Social Media and was asking, why should you have a blog? These are great answers to that question.
Great post, Jeff. We wrote on a similar vein “Why Businesses Must Blog” recently (http://blog.ymarketing.com/bid/19636/Why-Businesses-Must-Blog-ymarketing) and provided (just) six reasons — our first three are tied to SEO — but you’ve added some intriguing discussion points about leading and writing specifically into the mix, thanks. -David
Hi Jeff,
Thanks a lot for this post. I am planning a blog for our website and your advice of not using wordpress has been a great eye opener. I thought it would be a very convenient way to create a good looking blog without bothering too much with programming and design but you made me change my mind. Is there a simple way to create a blog without using wordpress or similar and without loosing traffic? Thanks again. Eva
Hi, just thought you should see this: http://arnteriksen.no/7-grunner-til-at-en-bedrift-b%C3%B8r-blogge – This guy is stealing your content, in Norwegian that is.
Liked your article so much I added a link to it from my site…
http://www.bizstartupservices.com
Jeff,
Just found your post. Very good advice and very comprehensive. Thank you!
Charles
using your website as a reference for my case analysis in my I.S. class…mba level
Having started a blog in December 09 on “Loyalty Building & New Media Project Management”, I found this post very useful.
I’ve just started blogging for several of the reasons mentioned above, but one other that I’ve noticed is that it provides me with a creative outlet for my ideas. If you are a right-brained person, you feel compelled to express creativity in the form of words, pictures, music or videos. Blogging does just that – it lets me be creative while providing an easy way to gather valuable input from others.
Matt Kaplan
http://www.conflictedbrain.com
Great short and sweet article. I have the link on my website because I thought it was great information.
Thanks
Laurie
These are all great reasons to start blogging. The more you get your customers and subscribers involved in your company and they understand what exactly you’re trying to accomplish then the better your chances are of them discussing you with others. We all know that the internet is rapidly becoming the fastest and smartest way to get yourself out there into the general public
I really love the stumbleupon blog. The concept of the whole thing is just fantastic.
Nowadays one of the best ways to advertise your business is by the Internet. All this tips will improve the SEO of our site and it will lead to drive more traffic to it.