Understanding the big difference a Blog can bring to Small Business

Blogs hold tremendous power that every small business needs to utilize.

There are two primary ways people will come to read your blog. The first is via search engines. If you're writing about your business's topic, you need to be sure you're doing keyword research. Find out what people are searching for that's related to your industry.

The second way people read your blog is through RSS readers. These are people who already found your blog, like your content and want to make sure they don't miss a thing. From the RSS feed you can drive these readers into your site, whether it be your blog or your main business content areas.

Blogs promote your knowledge
Blog posts are a great way to share your knowledge. In any industry those that are viewed as the most knowledgeable tend to be the most trusted. Whether you are in a competitive field or a shallow one, you can make yourself--and your business--stand out by promoting your in depth knowledge of your topic.
Sharing little known tips, tricks, strategies, helpful tidbits, detailed instructions and tutorials all lend to your own credibility. Put enough of those together and you have your own e-book, or a library of e-books.

Blogs help people
Not an egomaniac? Fine, don't think about blogging as a way to promote yourself or your knowledge. Just think of it as a way to help people. Because while you're promoting your knowledge you're also giving people valuable information that helps them in life, business or whatever. Your tips and tutorials are providing valuable information to people who otherwise may not have known. You are making people's lives better by giving them an education.

Blogs build links
The more helpful your blog posts are the more likely they'll be passed on or linked to. Twitter is great for passing around URLs. One good blog post can get a lot of distance through the social media platforms. As your resources get noticed you'll start to build links. People will link to you in their blogs or websites or pass your information on via Facebook or twitter to other who may link to it. You'll find your posts accessible from industry related websites and sometimes even direct competitors. People love sharing information and on the web, information is shared with links.

Blogs create customer and brand loyalty
The more you blog, and the more helpful your blog is, the more customer and brand loyalty you'll be creating. Not every blog post is designed to get customers, nor should it be. But the more people who come to read your valuable information, the more likely they'll be to become your customers when they need what you have.

But until your readers become your customers, you're building up your brand. Brand recognition is extremely important as it plays toward perceptions... which are also passed along. Brand loyalty builds word of mouth, which in turn, builds more customers

Blogs increase sales
Building customers means one thing... you are increasing sales. Yes, your blog will have a lower conversion rate than your main areas of the site, but again, it's primary function isn't to directly build sales. But in the long run, that's exactly what will happen. The more links you get, and the more your blog posts are passed around and/or read, the larger your reach becomes. As your reach grows, your sales grow.

There is no doubt that blogs are a lot of work. It takes time to decide what to write and then put your information together in a compelling way. In my next post I'll discuss ways that the small business can manage it's blogging schedule in order to maintain a healthy blog while not ignoring their business.

If you haven't started blogging for your business you need to start. If fact, if you're not blogging or twittering I'd say start twittering and work your way to blogging. If you are blogging, start twittering and promote your blog! But you need to get to blogging. A blog can be set up in a matter of hours and ready for your first blog post. Start building your audience today.