Should You Create a Blog to Market Your Small Business?

Should you create a blog for your small business? For many small businesses, I think it is absolutely worth the initial small investment of time and money to create a blog to market your small business. Take a look at this article in the San Francisco Chronicle that talks about several small businesses that created a blog with good results.

In addition, I've listed ten reasons you should consider creating a blog for your small business:

1. Blogs can differentiate you from local competitors who do not have their own blog.
2. If done correctly, blogs begin to establish credibility in the minds of your potential customers - even before your first meeting.
3. Blogs begin the trust-building process with potential customers who are a good fit for your organization and help weed out those potential customers who are not a good fit.
4. A blog provides an extremely easy way to add and organize new content without having to use inside or outside web resources.
5. If you don't already have a website, a blog can serve as a very good substitute - at a much lower cost.
6. Blog services allow you to automatically create a syndication channel (rss feed) for your content. This content can then be syndicated (broadcast) to potential customers who can view your content without having to visit your blog (or website).
   
7. If you have a website, you can use a blog to get new web pages crawled (within hours) and indexed by MSN, Yahoo and Google more quickly.
8. Blogs can be an effective way to solicit and collect feedback from your customers on support issues or even new product or service ideas.
9. The underlying web architecture of blogging services is very web crawler friendly. This means your content has a better chance of getting indexed by the crawlers - especially if your current website is not structured properly.
10. To use a fishing analogy, creating a blog simply puts "another line in the water" while you're fishing for new customers. A blog provides another important avenue for potential customers to find you and the products or services you offer.

When used correctly, a blog can be a very effective marketing tool for your small business. A blog can not only help you attract new customers, but a blog can also enhance your current product or service development, sales, internet marketing and customer support processes. The initial investment to create a blog is relatively small and the potential benefits can be very significant.

If you want to learn more about blogs or even create a blog on your own, check out Typepad and Blogger - two popular blogging services. Or, if you'd like some help building a professional blog, feel free to contact me using the information below.

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Feel free to contact Rob Reed with questions about the contents of this article. You may use this article on your website, blog or enewsletter. The article must appear with the following credit and links:

Rob Reed is president of Terrakon Marketing, an internet marketing and sales consulting firm based in St. Louis. Terrakon helps small businesses, service firms and professionals attract and win more customers. Learn more at www.Terrakon.com or Rob's blog at www.MarketingCentricity.com.