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A blog is so important to the online success of all small businesses that it can truly be called the real heart. It’s more important than Facebook, than Twitter, LinkedIn, and more important even than a static, stand-alone website.
Have we convinced you yet that your blog is important? OK, here’s why it is:
It is the heart or hub of your online presence, and is the bridge between your website and the social networks.
For service business owners especially, a blog is where you can demonstrate your expertise by regularly adding written, audio or video examples of what you do, and provide proof that it works. It also a place to announce new products or services in a non-salesy way.
It’s the place where you can build online relationships with your readers who, if you’ve targeted them correctly, are also prospective clients for your business. Your blog gives them the opportunity to get to ‘know, like & trust’ you much more easily than short updates of 140 characters.
It’s where you can send social networking connections to learn more about you, somewhere that isn’t just a sales page. It always amazes us when people still do this.
When you publish a new blog post, you instantly create new material to use as informative updates and share on your social networks.
By regularly adding new posts you increase the occasions on which Google & Bing will return to visit your blog. This in turn increases your general online visibility and rankings in the search engines. It’s a vital component of your content marketing strategy as this excellent post by Ardath Albee shows.
If you have chosen a self-hosted blog then your blog is a part of the internet owned by you. Which is more than can be said for Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, etc…… even if you do pay for hosting and buy a premium blog theme, setting up a blog is still an extremely cost-effective way to establish a professional presence online for your business. It’s also where you have total control over the content and are free to make as many changes as you wish, as your business develops and grows.
If you’d like to learn more about blogging, here are details of a short guide which may be helpful.
So, how are you treating the real heart of your business online?
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Hey Neil – Thanks for Scooping this post:)