Three Benefits of Starting a Small Business Blog

Today, we have a guest post from my friend and co-mastermind member, Angela Wills. Angela is an online marketing success story. Through her Internet business, she was able to leave her factory job and support her son. So she knows a thing or two about Internet marketing!

About once a month I attend a local meeting of women in business. The types of businesses range from a bookkeeper, to a Reiki practitioner, to a travel agent who works out-of-home and more. I once did a presentation for them on how starting a small business blog will help them grow their business.

The first objection I got was “But I don't have time to start a blog for my business, I'm just trying to keep up with all this stuff!”. Well, in today's post I'm going to tell you three good reasons why you should start a small business blog (the benefits) and why it doesn't have to be as time consuming as you might expect. I think you'll be both surprised and impressed. Then, I hope you'll take action and get that blog up, stat!

Just let me back up a bit first and introduce myself.

Hi, I'm Angela Wills. I've known Lexi for many years now through the mastermind group with both belong to, Solo Masterminds. My business is Marketers Mojo and what I do is help solopreneurs and freelancers use the tools of the Internet to build a thriving business that they truly love.

I've seen Lexi grow her own small business over recent years and have always been impressed with her focus and her writing. I'm a little worried about writing an awesome post for such a talented writer, but I'm going to try my best.

So let's get back to it…

What three ways can starting a blog benefit your business?

1. Get You More Search Engine Traffic
2. Build Solid Relationships With Your Market
3. Showcase & Show-off Your Talents

Get More Search Engine Traffic

No matter if you're a freelance artist, a local coffee shop owner, a business coach or anyone else, if you're in business a blog can help you get found more easily in the search engines. The typical ‘starter' website has about five common pages: Home, About, Contact, Services/Products/Menu & maybe FAQ or Testimonials. These pages are not usually enough to get you a steady flow of traffic!

You see search engines love fresh, relevant content. When they see you add to your blog on a regular basis (be it daily, weekly or as often as you can) they consider you relevant and like to reward you for that. They'll come back often and give you more rankings because you have newer content than your competition.

Another advantage in search engine terms is linking (two different kinds at that!). Internal linking allows you to point those search engine spiders to your good content, giving it more attention. You are also much more likely to get external links (links from other people's sites) when you blog because you're posting great content that people want to reference.

Build Solid Relationships With Your Market

If you're faceless people won't trust you as easily. If people don't trust you, they won't buy from you as often. A blog allows you to get into a little different mindset than the typical ‘here's what we offer' mode. You'll build great relationships with your market this way. Even if you don't get comments, people will be silently reading and getting to know you. Don't underestimate the power in this point alone!

Showcase and Show-off Your Talents

Now I don't consider myself a show-off but it's often much easier to show people what you can do instead of tell them. Of course your main pages should be filled with examples of what you can do and testimonials. Your blog then allows you the opportunity to dig deeper and really showcase your talents. Use this section to brag a little (or a lot), without being arrogant of course.

The great thing about doing a showcase or case-studies is that it also creates an opportunity to promote your clients or customers as well. This is great if you are in a business to business field. Even if you're not, though, it may still work for you. Think about all the websites that show before and after shots of people who've lost weight. You know those people who've achieved weight loss are happy to be an example for others because they are so very proud of what they've achieved.

So there you have three very good reasons why a blog is good for business.

But, Angela, I Still Have NO Time For a Blog!

Now, on the issue of not enough time. Of course time is what we make of it and if you believe that blogging will work for you I bet you'll find a little time on your calendar. It doesn't need to take you 10 hours a week. If you have 30 minutes a week, use that.

Examples of what you can do in 30 minutes per week:

• If you already write a newsletter then you've got yourself EASY content – just post it online.
• If you get frequently asked questions, post one per week.
• Maybe you like video? Sit down one weekend and record ten videos that are two minutes each and you've got yourself two and a half months worth of content that you can totally automate!
• Don't want to write it? Hire a virtual assistant to rewrite some PLR content for you.

You don't have to blog daily to blog effectively. You decide what it's worth to you and then figure out the best way to make that happen!

You've Convinced Me. Now Where Do I Get a Blog?

If blogging is for you, your next question is going to be “How do I get a blog?”. My suggestion would be to use WordPress. It's a free platform for people who want a professional blog that is entirely owned by them. If you go with WordPress you can even have a blog and a website all in one system (for free) that is based ‘in the cloud'. It makes it super easy to edit your website or blog anywhere, pay people to do updates for you and to update your site in a hurry. I'm pretty sure Lexi will agree with me when I say if you want a blog, get one on WordPress! (Lexi: Yes, I do! But I must add that even if you use WordPress, which is free, you should pay for hosting your site instead of using free hosting at WordPress.com.)

I hope this article has been helpful and I'd love to see what you create so post here if you're going to start one and let us know. Also, if you already have a blog I'd love to hear from you… let us know how it's going, how you use it and what you think you need more help with.

P.S. I love WordPress so much I decided over a year ago to teach others how to set it up, customize and promote their businesses with it. I'm doing my next live webinars in November and would love to invite you to join my growing group of clients (Over 120).

You can check it out and grab a special $100 discount with the following info:
Visit this link: WordPress Website and Blog Creation
Use this coupon: mojo

photo credit: ilouque