Small business internet marketing enthusiasts – If you’ve had an aversion to blogging in the past or think it will be too much trouble please take the time to read this post before making that decision.  Blogs are highly effective marketing tools and worth investing in for four simple reasons in my opinion.

First off, search engines LOVE blogs

So much so that they index blogs much quicker than traditional websites. I’ve heard that blog sites are picked up by search engines in just a few days whereas traditional sites can take up to 1-2 months for indexing. As you read about in a previous post, indexing is a key component to increasing your search
engine presence.

Blogs increase your SEO by presenting fresh new content

Recently a client of mine set up a blog content site on the side and within a few weeks that site was showing up in the rankings for quality secondary keywords that the original well-optimized site never does! This is due to the fact that the blog articles contained informative keyword rich posts that simply wouldn’t fit within the confines of their static site. Now imagine if they were to integrate this content blog into their primary site! I always recommend implementing a WordPress blog into your primary site but it certainly wouldn’t hurt to have one on the side.

Blogs are inexpensive (or free) and are easy to use

Because blogs offer a user-friendly interface to post content or make changes you don’t have to be a skilled website designer to use them.

Blogs are personal, less “salesy” sounding, and can be jam packed with valuable information

…much more so than a traditional website. Due to the personal nature of blogs they tend to more interactive which keeps visitors coming back. Blog readers often turn into blog followers if the content is good. Users can actually post comments which adds additional value and credibility to your site. Also, if another blogger really likes your content they may even add a link to your blog on their blogsite.

Take a good look at my site which is actually a blog site with a handful of stand-alone pages but also tons of blog posts as well which don’t require individual pages to be created. Can you imagine if I’d created a “page” for each post you can access within the sidebar of my blog page? The site would be very messy and difficult to navigate. The blog platform enables you to post and organize content according to categories. This information is easily accessible to the reader by accessing the category links or post links in the sidebar of the page. I started the SEO Design Dynamics blogsite initially to serve as a journal for me to keep up with various methodologies and trends in my marketspace that have been helpful along the way. Now that you’re here, ask yourself this question. Would you have found my site equally as useful if it were merely a series of pages trying to promote or sell services? My guess is, probably not. Blog sites are more informative, less salesly sounding, and offer visitors valuable free information which increases your value proposition.

Information from your blog can be spread quickly and virally throughout the internet

It’s quite easy for blog material to spread through social networking medium and among the blogging community in general. Blogs tend to be updated much more frequently than traditional websites which means fresh content is always visible to your customers and prospects with one click of the mouse.

Blog content can be syndicated through RSS Feeds. RSS stands for “really simple syndication” and the feeds are included by default or easily added to any blog. Updates to your blog are blasted out across the internet in the form of RSS feeds to thousands of viewers. Pretty neat concept and quite valuable…but also pretty confusing I imagine .

You may be unfamiliar with RSS feeds so the best way to get familiar with what the reader sees is to hit the RSS feed link in the upper right hand corner of my website. Within a few seconds you’ll be redirected to the http://www.seodesigndynamics.com/feed/ page which shows a summary of several recent blog posts I’ve written. Many bloggers and blog readers have RSS feed subscriptions set up already to receive
these updates. After hitting my link you’ll see a dropdown box offering options for your readers to subscribe to the feed. I personally use the Google Reader which was very simple to register for through my Google account. The subscribe button allows a first-timer (you included if that’s the case) to subscribe to the feed. You can clearly see information about my posts in the lower section of the page.

This information is then fed into each subscribers feed reader which keeps you and your website or blog in front of the customer at all times. My guess is many of you will never take an interest in RSS feeds on a personal level but as an act of faith realize that thousands and thousands of blog readers do take interest and by having a feed on your blog you’re essentially getting “free advertising.”

In addition to RSS, blogs offer widgets and plugins which are basically special mechanisms included in the blog software, that allows readers to post links to your blog posts through social media such as Facebook and Twitter, and others as well. Take a look at the “Share and Enjoy” buttons at the bottom of each page and post on my site. With one click, any reader can post links to my content on his or her own social networking pages. Pretty neat huh? For the purposes of local business marketing I feel that Facebook and Twitter should be the primary social networking avenues you should pursue but it can’t hurt to have links to your content posted by others to stumbleUpon, Delicious, Tumblr, Yahoo Buzz, etc.

For setting up a blog I recommend one of two different methods.

Most web hosting companies will allow and provide for the easy installation of Wordrpress, the industry standard for blogging. The advantage here is that the blog will be included as part of your site, sharing the same formatting and imagery, making it congruent in terms of branding and causing additional influx of traffic directly to your site.

For example, take a look at www.celebratevitamins.com. You’ll notice a link in the lower left sidebar to the blog page. Click it and see how the blog appears within the site instead of redirecting you elsewhere. The Celebrate blog is very personal by nature and I am well aware that they’ve drawn in tons of new customers from the pool of readers that
visit this blog. WordPress offers a plugin which allows the blog’s author to notify all her Facebook friends when a new post is published and also contains an RSS feed as we discussed earlier. Setting up a WordPress blog will require some assistance from your web designer but once it’s set up you can manage all the content.

If  WordPress doesn’t appeal to you or you’re hosting provider doesn’t allow WordPress installations, don’t fret. Setting up a Blogger account is quite simple. Visit www.blogger.com to set up an account. Since Blogger is tied in with Google you can immediately log in to begin setting up your blog by using your Gmail or Google login credentials. Otherwise set up an account and create a blog using many of the pre-installed templates at your disposal. Although the URL of your Blogger blog is separate from your main website, it should contain the name of your main website in it (ie./ “www.yourwebsitename.blogger.com”). You’ll have the opportunity to post a link back to your main website within the blog plus all the widgets necessary to share your content with others through social media. Remember you should definitely post a link to your Blogger blog page on your main website.

With regards to blog content there are no hard and fast rules.

However I’d make it a point to post at least once a week if possible. If not, don’t sweat it. Just make sure you have 7-10 quality posts present before you start promoting your blog. For ideas on content you can do a search a Google search for blogs related to your industry for ideas. Just remember not to copy content verbatim because the search engines will pick up on this which will undoubtedly hurt your ability to rank well with the search engines and potentially get you in a legal pickle. Keeping an informative or personal tone to your posts is key and speaking of key…keywords should be included in blog posts whenever possible.

Thanks for visiting this post. There are additional ways to use blogging to your advantage even if you don’t have a blog. I refer to these methods in my Free Mini Course. For those of you who’ve progressed through the entire marketing blog series but haven’t signed up for the course, I urge you to now. There will be more details and explanations included in the course. Also there are additional posts and links you may find valuable in the sidebar to the right. Thanks for visiting!