5 Reasons Blogging is Good For You (And Your Business)

I recently advised a friend of mine to add a blog to his company's new website and, whilst it set back the go live date by a few weeks as the developer desperately tried to incorporate a blog into a vastly intricate Flash site (don't ask), I believe it will be worth it.

As Social Media becomes more and more important to both SEO and the user experience, companies must ensure that their sites are in some way interactive. A website filled with dry, static content that never changes is little more than a glorified online brochure that's potentially years out of date - a website should offer users a much more interactive experience, and the easiest way to do this is through use of a blog.

Blogging is good for your business because:

• It ensures your company website is regularly updated with fresh and interesting content about your specific niche. Blog content can be anything from company news to instructional videos, it doesn't have to be pure text;
• It's an opportunity to make a connection with potential customers, to showcase the personalities lurking behind that corporate facade;
• It gives you the chance to impart genuinely useful advice about your business or products, making you appear magnanimous and, if your advice is good enough, has the potential to make your website a destination for web users interested in your particular trade or niche;
• Blogs are a great way of increasing traffic to your website; if a particularly funny or interesting article proves popular, some of the visitors it gets are bound to turn into paying customers;

And blogging is good for you because:

• It ensures you stay engaged with your niche - it forces you to stay at the forefront of your industry. If you're always on the look out for a great topic for your blog, then you're going to be trawling the latest news stories, changes in law and business legislation that may affect your business or your customers. The more authoritative your knowledge of your industry, the more likely you are to impress prospective customers.

But Remember…

If you're going to make the most of your company blog, you must update it regularly. An infrequently updated blog can be damaging to your business, making you appear lazy, disengaged with your customers and your industry as a whole.

Here are some examples of well maintained company blogs: SEOmoz, Pannone's Personal Injury Blog.