To Blog or Not to Blog
What is the first thing that you think of when you hear the word blog? In the beginning blogs were basically online diaries and many people began to chronicle their daily lives and broadcast it on the internet. Blogs have since evolved and today have become wonderful marketing tools for businesses, but they can also have a downside.
It’s clear that blogging has become an important aspect of social media and it’s a way that many people today find information and entertainment online. On the positive side blogs can also be a tool that businesses can use to boost their reputation, establish a harmonious company voice, assert expertise, and climb the search engine ladder. It’s the perfect way to reach a multitude of customers very inexpensively.
Creating a blog on your company website fills your site with up-to-date content. Search engines love sites that are full of relevant content and the more content you have the more opportunities you have to use keywords which will increase your visibility on these search engines. This is why you should opt to have a blog on your company website as opposed to free hosted blog sites like WordPress. If you have a blog on one of these sites you’re actually creating search engine competition for yourself rather than boosting the “searchability” of your company website.
Tingalls Graphic Design learned this lesson the hard way by setting up our own WordPress blog and adding pertinent and useful information on a weekly basis and then we realized that our blog was ranking higher than our main website. Now we’ve moved that content to our own “in house” blog at www.tingalls.com/tips/ and we’ve reaped the benefits of our own blog content. If fact, we often blog about this exact topic!
One of the biggest complaints of companies that blog is that it takes time. Researching information, coming up with ideas and then cranking out the blogs on a regular basis can be very time consuming.
Another problem that you will often see in company blogs is voice confusion, especially if the task is handed out to several people without clearly announcing who is speaking. Every company should have a voice that appeals to their customers and sets them apart from their competition. It’s important to have that voice reflect your company and work hand in hand with your other marketing efforts. For example an accountant will most likely want to have a professional and authoritative blog and not one that comes off like a comedian always trying to make jokes.
If you’re considering adding a blog to your company website but are worried about having the time to come up with regular blogs or your company voice, contact Tingalls and our new, on-staff copywriter can help you with your blogging content.
Related Posts
