Your Business Needs a Blog :: Part 1

When working with new web design clients, one of the questions that I ask when sorting out the content that will go on their website, is whether or not they will have a blog.  Often times, their answer is in the form of a question, “Do I need one?  My answer is always “yes.”  I truly believe that every business should have a blog because it is a relatively low cost way to market your business.

Having a blog drives more traffic to your site.  Before I started blogging for my business, I was averaging less than 10 visitors a month.  Not per day or per week, but 10 visitors per month.  Granted, at that time I was still working as a graphic designer in corporate America and freelancing only on the side.  I built a website like most businesses do, to establish a web presence and showcase my portfolio.  In my free time, I built an unrelated site to blog about some of my interests in natural hair, art and healthy living.  Within a few months, I was averaging over 1,000 visitors per month on that site.  10 visitors per month for a business that helps put food in my mouth compared to 1,000 visitors per month for something I do for fun, about random stuff that I like?  Yes, I thought the same thing you are thinking right now.

When I decided to freelance full-time, I also decided to dedicate time to blog for this site as well as my other site.  Actually, this site has become a significantly higher priority over my “fun site.”  Within a few months time, I saw my site traffic triple to over 30 visitors per month.  In a year’s time, I was averaging over 100 visitors per month and I only posted a new blog post once a week.  Not only did my website traffic increase, but it was what I consider “quality” traffic.  I blog about topics relating to: graphic design, marketing for small businesses and projects that I have done.  The services that my business offers relates to the topics that I write about.  As a matter of fact, most of my blog posts are born out of the questions that I get from clients; and friends and family that like to pick my brain.  That means that the majority of the visitors to my blog fall within the demographics of my client base.  In my opinion, that makes it “quality” traffic.  The added bonus is that this “quality” traffic only costs me the time it takes for me to sit down and type.

This leads me to my next point.  Having a blog can increase revenue.  It is all about the content.  If you have quality content related to your products and/or services, it can influence a visitor to want to learn more about your business, which can lead to a purchase.  How many times have you turned to the internet for information on a particular product or service and ended up on a blog?  If what you read was informative and helpful, did you do some further browsing on that site?  Did you make a purchase or contact them for further information about their services?  If you answered yes, then you fell within the category of being “quality” traffic for that particular site.  I have had several clients that were the result of landing on one of my blog postings and many more inquiries into the services that I offer as a result of reading my blog.  Again, the cost to market in this way for me, is just time.

Blogging as a form of marketing your business is fairly inexpensive.  If you have a website, then you already have a domain name and hosting.  You may have to get with your web designer if you are not very technically adept, but it will be fairly easy to add a blog to your existing site.  If your website was built within the last two years or so, chances are that it is already built on a content management system (CMS) like WordPress.  Websites that are built on platforms like WordPress make it easy to add a blog.  Other than time, which I consider a cost, most of your out of pocket expenses to blog will be related to content creation.

Can you spell and write a decent sentence?  Then you can probably write a blog post.  If not, you can pay to have one written using a freelance writer or a service like scripted.com.  If you are not sure where to find a freelance writer, check out sites like odesk and elance.  Not sure what to write?  Think like your customer.  What would they want to read?  What information would be helpful to them?  Remember, it’s not about you, but about them.  Help them and they will reward you with their patronage.