Some days, it can seem that everyone has a blog – or some variant form such as a microblog, group blog, photoblog or vlog. It’s easy to dismiss blogging as a form of self-indulgence, like publishing a diary, but business owners ignore blogging to their cost. A business blog can be a simple way to create and improve relations with customers, as well as attracting more business to a central website.
ORIGINS
The term “blog” – a contraction of “weblog” – dates to the late 1990s, around the same time that blogs became a major internet phenomenon. Online diaries and journals had existed for years, but it was only in 1998 and 1999 that easy-to-use blog hosting tools became available, prompting thousands to start blogging. Early blogs were mainly personal: users wrote about their lives, their jobs, or simply whatever came into their heads. As the medium evolved, though, blogs began to become more diverse – and to have a greater impact. Famous blogs attract hundreds of thousands or even millions of readers, and prominent blogs shape the development of news and public opinion.
BLOGS AND BUSINESS
Blogs on the modern internet are much more than personal journals; many businesses maintain official blogs. Even a business with an active website can benefit from maintaining a blog.
A blog makes an effective addition to a company’s web presence for several reasons. Blogs tend to be more informal than most web pages, making readers feel more relaxed and at home. A blog helps the reader feel like he or she knows the company behind it. This is especially true for small businesses, who rely on establishing personal relationships with clients. Frequent updates get information about the company out without the formality or effort of press releases.
A chatty blog giving an inside view on the company is valuable, but it isn’t the only thing that keeps readers coming back. A blog is a good way to distribute small pieces of useful information to readers. Tutorials, product demonstrations, explanations of features and other useful short pieces keep readers coming back for added value. By constantly updating the blog and keeping clients supplied with useful new product information, a company blog builds up a lasting relationship.
GETTING IT RIGHT
Starting a business blog can be as simple as opening up a free account on one of the countless blogging platforms available online. However, a successful company blog requires a little more effort in how often it is updated, what sort of content in published and how well maintained it is. A blog that starts up but then dies out is almost worse than no blog at all.
Another key to a successful blog is connecting it to search engines effectively. It’s relatively straightforward to convert an existing client to a blog reader, especially if they already receive an email newsletter or similar. Bringing in readers from the internet at large is a little trickier. The key to connecting with new readers is search engine optimisation, or SEO.
Whenever a user enters a phrase in a web search, the search engine – Google, for example – searches through all the web pages it has indexed for those that best match the query. The search engine ranks pages according to a complex algorithm that takes into account, among other things, how many other pages link to a site, how frequently certain key phrases appear, the names of pages and the perceived “authority” of the source. SEO simply means designing, writing and promoting a page so that it achieves as high a rank in search engines as possible. The main part of this task is simply writing clear, readable content, but there are small changes experts can make which can result in big differences in search results.
MAINTAIN A BLOG
A business blog is an ongoing project, and it won’t have a huge impact on sales overnight. To get the best of it, business owners – or their web experts – will have to build up not only a readership of their own but connections to other blogs, whether other local businesses or general blogs on the same topic. Even though establishing a blog can be time-consuming, it’s still a simple and inexpensive way to bring a direct, personal appeal to any business’s online presence.
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