WHAT IS A BLOG AND DO I NEED ONE ON MY WEBSITE?

Be an expert in your field and show off your abundant knowledge with a blog! A blog is a series of content (called “posts”) that are usually organized by date with the most recent post showing first. Many blogs also have the posts organized by category for convenient browsing.

They have comment forms at the end of every post that allow the readers to give the author feedback and interact with other readers. Blogs (taken from the phrase “web logs”) were originally created for personal journaling. Now people use them in place of a website, or in some cases, they own both.

As they become more and more popular, great businesses are being built off the back of a strong online blogging strategy. This is usually created by the owner or high profile staff member in the business, and is one of the sure fire ways to regularly communicate online with clients and potential clients, and keep top of mind and communicate all sorts of relevant information.

Interactive sites such as small business advice websites invite discussion forums with their visitors. By responding to questions relating to your industry not only demonstrates your knowledge, it is also another marketing opportunity to include your name, business and website details. By adding this functionality to your site, you may generate more visitors to your site and potential business for little effort.

It gives a reason for people to keep coming back to your website, and reinforces the impression that you are a reputable business that is willing to assist their clients by giving away information and advice for free.

The more fresh content you post to your website, the more you are building relationships with your community. Think of it as getting a group of friends together a few times a week—it nurtures the heart and soul of your business (your connection with your clients and customers). It is recommended you post fresh content to your blog at least every 3 days, but we believe that as long as you are doing it with some regularity then that is better than not doing it at all!

SHOULD I START WITH A BLOG OR A WEBSITE?
There’s no right or wrong answer to this. It is very dependent on budget, and the type of information that will be posted, including frequency.

Due to the way people read blogs, it’s best to create a blog if you have a lot of news and fresh information to write about on a topic, and you should be able to produce new content on a consistent basis.

Websites tend to be created with the majority of its content when first launched. Whereas a blog will grow over time. The information in a website is more static and often contains reference information that people would want to bookmark and return from time to time. Websites are often described as ‘online brochures’.
It is our recommendation that your business would actually use both. Typically you would create the website first, and once it had begun getting enough traffic, you in turn use that traffic and database to promote the blog. They are supportive of each other, and are co-branded to maintain continuity.

TYPES OF BLOGS
The Business Owner Blog –This is the blog for you if you provide some type of service or product to your customers, like life coaching, graphic design, accounting services. You have a website already set up, where you list your products/services, so any blog you have would be an add-on—an extra navigation tab on your existing website.

The reason why a blog is so important for this business type is that it is one of the only places where you’ll regularly update your web content—and is thus a main traffic generator. Here, your blog’s objective is to get as many people as you can to come to your website, and discover all the products and services that you offer.

Do this by posting your own relevant articles, updates, and musings—but keep it all related to your business mission.

The Personality Blog – If your primary goal is to position yourself as an authority on a specific subject—by writing books, speaking, making media appearances—then you’ll want to set up a slightly different blog.

Your blog’s main objective is to build a community. When you have a community that looks to you for guidance, media outlets will also want to engage with you. People connect with your unique personality, your philosophy—and your blog showcases this. Have opinions, be bold, and start up as much conversation with your community as often as you can.

The Company Blog – This is a blog for a big company, where there is no specific persona to associate with. This is a little more difficult to manage as the very nature of a blog is to be personal, and a faceless entity is anything but personal!

The Curator Blog – This is like an online magazine, where you gather content on a specific topic from around the Internet and build a loyal community around that content.

If you think you need a hand with creating a blog, then please contact us and we can have an obligation-free chat.