The How, the Why, and the What the Heck Do I Write About??

This is the first post in a four part series about blogging for small businesses.

Part 1: Why a blog is a great small business marketing tool.
Part 2: How to quickly and easily set up your own blog.
Part 3: What to write about.  Small business blogging tips.
Part 4: Case studies.  Real life examples of effective small biz blogs.

Part 1: Why a blog is a great small business marketing tool

Blogs have been around since the ’90’s, but small business owners have been slow to jump on the blogging bandwagon.  Blogging is not only an easy way to spread your message.  It’s also proven to be an incredible marketing tool for both large and small businesses.

When presented with the idea of writing a blog, most small business owners feel trepidation either because they aren’t sure what they would write about, because they are intimidated by the technology, or both.  In this series we will show you that blogging for your business is nothing to be feared.  Embrace blogging and you’re likely to see an influx of traffic to your website and sales added to your bottom line.  We’ll tackle the how and the what to write about in subsequent posts, but for now lets take a look at why blogging makes so much sense for small business owners.

Generate Website Traffic

Blogs are great for SEO.  Blogs feed fresh content to the search engines.  Search engines love seeing updated content and reward you accordingly.  If you have a business website then you probably know that getting your prospective customers to find your site isn’t as easy as you had hoped.  Blogging gives your site much greater exposure because you are providing a consistent stream of new content.  This fresh content is continually indexed by Google and increases your chances of ranking higher in search engines for your desired keywords.

A recent report published by Hubspot determined that businesses who blog have:

• 55% more visitors to their website.

• 97% more inbound links.  This represents the number of other sites that link to your site.  This is a major factor in gaining high search engine rankings.

• 434% more indexed pages.  Indexed pages are pages that are visible to Google and therefore eligible to be presented to users searching for your services.

Build Authority

As a local business owner you are fighting for your share of a finite customer base.  If you are a service provider who can benefit from authority status then blogging is perfect for you.  Lawyers, realtors, medical professionals, and accountants are obvious candidates who could benefit from blogging.

Imagine you are looking for a local attorney.  You do a Google search and find a few websites for local law firms.  They outline the services they provide and give brief bios of their attorneys.  Then you find a local attorney with a blog covering an array of topics, each demonstrating a thorough knowledge of the law.  Sure, the other attorneys might be just as qualified, but who are you going to choose?  The blogging lawyer has proven to you that he is an authority.  He confidently writes about serious and complicated topic matters and you are impressed.  Case closed.

So, service providers are the obvious winners here.  What about all the other small business owners?  The restaurant owner, the boutique clothing store owner, the salon owner, the art supply store owner?  Guess what.  They all can benefit from blogging. We’ll cover the approach these other businesses might take in the third part in this series, but suffice to say, building your brand as an authority isn’t the only way to capitalize on blogging.

It’s Free!

If someone came to you and said they new a way in which you could generate new streams of traffic to your website and build your brand as a respected authority in your field at the same time you’d be interested, right?  Now, what if they told you that you could do this for free?  Slam dunk!

OK, as we all know, nothing is really free. Our time is often our most precious resource and adding a new recurring task to our to-do list is the last thing most of us want to do.  Unfortunately, the fact of the matter is that if you aren’t increasing your online exposure then you’re likely losing ground to competitors who are.  Blogging will require a time investment, but it doesn’t have to put a strain on you.  One blog post per week is a good target for a busy business owner, but if one solid blog post per month is all you can tackle, then so be it.  You will still see a benefit.

Stay tuned for part two of this series where we will explain an easy step by step process to get your own blog up and running.

Intuit’s Love A Local Business competition is a monthly competition that allows anyone (yes, even business owners) to nominate a local business for a $5,000 grant.  All you need to do is enter the business name, and write a brief explanation why you are nominating them.  Each month Intuit randomly draws 5 names from the nominees and chooses one winner.

Special Offer for December

During the month of December Intuit is offering a $50 Facebook advertising credit to any nominated business.  If you haven’t experimented with Facebook ads yet then this is a great way to get started without risking any money.  Facebook allows you to target users based on a range of geographic and demographic data.

Does your ideal customer fit into a specific demographic group?  If so, then Facebook is a very good place to spend a few of those ad dollars.  For instance, if you are a wedding photographer you can target women, ages 25-40 who live in Santa Cruz, CA & are engaged.  How’s that for laser targeting your demographic?!