Creating a Blog for your Small Business Website

September 24th, 2014 Comments off

how-to-make-blogWhether you have a new product to announce, an opinion to share or a business venture to discuss, a blog is a great  way to get your ideas out into the Internet and invite helpful feedback. Blogs are also a great way for small businesses to interact with customers and engage potential new customers in your products and brand.

Here are three easy steps to start a blog for your small business website:

Step #1 – Decide what you want out of your blog
A blog can provide your business with an easy way to introduce new products, effortlessly share media about your company, get customer feedback and much more. A simple blog that is hosted for free on another site such as Blogger.com or WordPress.com works well for smaller businesses that don’t have a website. For these blogs, the URL will look like  http://yourbusinessblog.wordpress.org or http://yourbusinessblog.blogger.com.

Another option would be to host the blog on your existing website.  This provides you with more design control of your business-based blog and offers significant SEO benefits for your site. If you host the blog on your website, the URL might look like http://yourbusiness.com/blog or http://blog.yourbusiness.com.

Step #2 – Choose a Blogging Service or Software
If you choose to go with a free hosting service, you can create a blog in minutes by choosing a name and a template design that suits your tastes. These blogs can be customized somewhat as you learn more about blog design and what pleases your eye using the free templates provided. To use a service such as Blogger, start by registering an account. The site will take you through the steps of starting your first blog. Once you’ve set up shop, just publish your first post and share the link with your customers. 

If you want to add a blog to your own site, you’ll need to add blogging software to your web site’s server.  Many web hosting companies like GoDaddy and HostGator provide blogger software for free for easy implementation.  If your web host does not offer blogger software, you’ll need to download either the WordPress or Blogger software (both offered for free) to your site’s server – a step that is a little complicated but could be easily done with tech support from your web hosting company.

Blog Tip:  One huge benefit of hosting a blog on your own site is for Search Engine Optimization aka SEO.  If your site does not have a lot of pages, a blog provides an easy way to increase the content (i.e. more pages).  Every post you make essentially creates a new page for the Google or Bing automated search spiders to find on your site. The more pages that you create, the more likely customers and businesses will find your business online.

Step #3 – Start writing!
A blog is only as good as its content. To make your blog the best it can be, take the time to create meaningful content on a regular basis that your customers will find interesting.  While this may seem hard at first, any form of company communication can be used as blog content such as company press releases, new product introductions or customer testimonials.  Other ideas include tips to run a business more effectively, methods to drive traffic to your website or how small businesses can use social media. 

The sky is the limit when it comes to writing content that your customers will enjoy.  Happy writing!

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