Blogs are great for small businesses

A guest post from Helen Reinson of IT Hummingbird 

Anyone that’s ever run a small business knows the importance of finding effective ways to market their business that won’t take too much time and can be done on a minimal, or even non-existent budget.

If this is relevant to you, then say hello to the blog; he could just be your biggest ally and your new best friend.

Blogging benefits

There are many benefits to writing a blog and posting it on your website and I’m sure you’ve heard of most of them.  These include:

• Driving traffic to your website
• Producing social media fodder
• Promoting your clients and associates
• Contributing to that ever important SEO
• Showing off your knowledge and expertise
• Opportunities to capture the attention of your target market
• Building a history of work you have done over a period of time
• Keeping your website fresh with new content on a regular basis
• Engaging with clients and prospects by encouraging them to leave their comments

But overall, they are a very effective means of spreading information about you and your business across a far wider target audience.

Given all these advantages it’s surprising to find that a large number of small business owners are reticent to start their own blog.   The common concerns seem to be:

• Not knowing what to blog about
• Finding the time
• Keeping momentum

Knowing what to blog about

I’ve heard business owners tell me they wouldn’t know what to blog about and then spend the next hour telling me, with great passion, all about their business, the fantastic product / service they offer and the benefit they provide.  For me blogging is a small step from talking about your businesses and what you can do for your clients, to putting this down in short, interesting and informative blog posts.

The trick is to think about what your target audience would be interested to read about or find invaluable to learn.

Blog about a recent achievement or case study, a challenge you’ve overcome, useful statistics or reference points of value to your target market.   Blog about events you host or attend; past, present and future.

Blog about the knowledge you have which could make a real difference to your existing and future clients.

Finding the Time

The first few times you write your blog you may well find that it does take some time.  However you will notice over time your blogging will get easier and quicker too.

To get you started here are my top 3 time saving tips:

1. You don’t need to write War and Peace so don’t be afraid to keep your blog posts short, sweet and to the point
2. Have a clear theme in your head before letting your fingers hit the keyboard
3. Set a limit on how much time you can spend you want to spend on the blog and make sure you stick to it

Remember your blog has the potential to reach and influence a wide and far-reaching audience.  What else could you do in that same timeframe, from the comfort of the your own home/office, that could have the same impact and provide as many benefits? 

Keeping momentum

It is true that once you decide to commit to a blog and host on your website you do need to make a commitment to keep it coming and keep it fresh.  But this need not be as daunting as it may sound, providing you apply some crafty tactics:

• Write ideas for blog content on a notepad as they come into your head so you have a list of future post topics to fall back on

• Write when the creativity strikes, this not only will make it easier and quicker to write the blog but also allows you to store up posts to release over a period of weeks

• Check your calendar and blog about those past, present and future events

• Find another small business blogger whose service / product complements your own and suggest exchanging guest blog posts

• We all hold a vast amount of knowledge in our specialised field; don’t give it all away at once but release as a series of posts and keep your audience coming back for more

I hope I’ve convinced you to at least give blogging a go.  Once you have your blog written and posted on your website you need to make sure you promote it for maximum coverage.  However, that is a whole different topic of its own to be covered in a separate blog

If you’ve got a great story to share about how blogging has helped your business, tell us in the comments below!

You can connect with Helen on Twitter  and read her own blog posts on her website.

If you think this post might be useful to others, please share it using the buttons below.