I don’t care if you’ve grown tired of hearing about them. A small business blog may indeed become one of your most effective marketing tools. You must start and grow a blog in 2008! Here’s why:
1) It makes it very easy to update your web presence
2) Locally you can use a blog to gain exposure that your competition can’t
3) Search engines love blogs (still) and will reward you with better search results when your prospects go looking
4) The daily and weekly chore (that may be how you initially view it) of producing written content will make you a much better communicator, marketer and salesperson – it’s the killer activity
Here’s how to get started
1) Read blogs – go to Bloglines.com and search for blogs in your industry and subscribe to them for free – then read
2) Get the software – even if you just mildly techie you can set-up a TypePad or WordPress blogging tool.
3) Start writing – keep a journal or use a service like Jott to send yourself notes every time a good idea for a blog post pops into your head. Once you start thinking this way, content will reveal itself all around you. Don’t forget to use the questions your customers and prospects ask you throughout the course of business as content for blog posts.
4) Start networking with other bloggers – Link to sites in your posts, write relevant comments on the blogs you read (including those of the journalists you have targeted), and create a list of the blogs you like with an eye on trading links
5) Get your community involved – think about ways to get your customers reading, subscribing to and commenting on your blog. Invite your best strategic partners to create guest posts. Re-purpose some of your blog content into other marketing pieces.