Considering starting a blog for your business? There are a variety of reasons why a small business would choose to add a blog to their online presence. But a blog is no golden goose, it takes time and effort to ensure it’s worth your while.
Steps to Setup Blog For Your Business?
Most businesses have a web presence of some sort, be it a website or something simpler like a Twitter account. However these services are limited in the way businesses can engage with their customer base.
A blog combines the professionalism of a website with the relationships of social media. It’s the perfect middle ground to have a unique platform that constantly updates and provides a forum for both the business and its clientele.
It’s a simple and efficient way to reach your customers and to keep your image fresh on the web. However your blog won’t be a guaranteed success and there are certain steps to take to ensure it accomplishes your goals.
Many businesses have opted to integrate a blog into their online presence, below are some of the pros and cons of this sort of undertaking.
1. Choosing Your Design: Using a Blog Engine
When setting up your blog you’re going to need a design. There are many companies that provide a free platform to set up a unique blog.
Pro: Blog engines are free, they’re easy, and most come with their own technical support. It shouldn’t take you long to set up and you’ll have your blog up and running in no time.
Con: Many of the templates provided by blog engines can be downloaded and used by anyone. Make sure you can set up your blog so that it’s unique to your business, it won’t reflect well if your blog looks like a dozen others.
2. Choosing Your Design: Hiring a Designer
If you have the funds it may be worth hiring a designer.
Pro: They’ll be able to design a unique blog just for you based on your needs. You won’t have to worry about setting up links and photos, you’ll just have to worry about content.
Con: First there’s the added expense, not everyone will think paying money to set up a blog is worth it. You’ll also end up having to go through a middle-man to make any changes to your blog.
3. Finding Community
Blogs are a great way to integrate your business into your community both online and offline.
Though there are millions of people looking for products and servies online, the biggest challenge is to attract your target audience. You need to understand your customers, their needs and wants.
You need to find out how you can attract their attention. You may add images and interesting articles to the blog to make it more attractive.
Though remember that content must be suitable for your taget audience. You can write it yourself or you may hire a professional to write it for you.
Pro: A blog allows any business owner to start a conversation, advertise a new product, and request feedback.
It provides the perfect venue for posting news and updates about your business, products, or services. It will also provide you the space for readers to check for new information and ultimately increases the online traffic your business will get.
Con: Maintaining that sense of community requires time and effort. That not only means regular posting but posting meaningful and engaging content.
If you don’t, you’ll turn off readers and it’s unlikely they’ll give you a second chance, a neglected blog quickly becomes a wasteland.
4. Communication & Discussion
Most blogs are equipped with a commenting or replying system embedded into the posts.
Pro: Provided the feedback is good, your blog will be a great place for interested customers to learn whether or not they want to buy your product or use your service. It also provides an opportunity for you to improve your relationships with your clientele.
Con: If instead you’re getting bad feedback from your readers, a blog could also provide a forum for them to rally against you, a blog would amplify that negative criticism. If you’re going to allow the option to reply to your posts, make sure before hand you can handle the negative criticism.
5. Upkeep
Keeping your blog up-to-date is integral to running it successfully, though this requires both time and effort on your part.
Pro: Keeping your blog up-to-date will keep readers engaged, search engines also prioritize relevance by post dates. More readers will visit your blog and more search engines will list it.
You always have to be aware of the latest news in the industry, you may share sales, updates and other interesting content. Try to take notes each time you have an interesting idea. It will help you to generate more content and to update your blog more often.
Con: If you leave your blog idling for extended periods of time, search engines will begin to dismiss it. If you’re not going to maintain your blog it would be a waste of resources to start one.
Conclusion
Remember, blogs are just another tool in your toolbox, their importance lies in what you do with them. Some businesses may find that a blog doesn’t suit their needs, and in those cases the time and effort in creating and maintaining one would be a waste.
If you feel a blog would work for your business, it’s a positive way to keep yourself out there and on the web.
- 4 Steps to Setup Blog For Your Business - October 19, 2016