Last week I wrote a blog about creating New Year’s Resolutions for your business. Although several of the suggestions mentioned improvements on your blog, I just realized that for many local businesses, creating a blog needs to happen first.
Question #1: Does your website have a blog?
If YES, skip to Question #2. If NO, call your web developer, IT department, or us immediately! Blogging is an easy and effective way to add quality content to your website, which will help drive more traffic and links to your website (which in turn will help your search engine rankings).
In 2012, if you don’t have a website, you don’t really exist. And if you don’t have a blog, you don’t really care about your website.
Question #2: Are you updating your blog regularly?
And by regularly, I don’t mean once a year. All business owners are guilty of getting too busy to even care what’s happening on their website or blog (yes, even us!). If that sounds like you, don’t hesitate to assign your staff to updating your blog.
Even if you work in a non-office setting, you can still get your staff to write about your business. If you’re running your business right, your staff are experts in the field. SO, give them an assignment to write one article a month about an industry-related topic of their choice.
Some ideas to give your staff to get them (or you) started:
- Current projects you’re working on
- Advice for troubleshooting a common problem
- “Best of” products/services your business or customers should use
- Employee Celebrations (weddings, births, anniversaries, holiday parties)
- Customer/Client celebrations (something great you did for your customers)
The potential topics are endless. Once you start assigning these to your staff, you may be surprised at how easy it eventually becomes for them. And if you’ve built your website on an easy platform (like WordPress), you can quickly show your staff how to add blog entries themselves.
Don’t feel bad – only 48% of local web designers and marketers are blogging
Out of the 25 web designers and marketing agencies we consider “the competition” in North Idaho, Southern Idaho & Eastern Washington, only 48% have a blog on their website. Really, web designers, really? We wonder how some of these agencies can give advice to their clients when they don’t follow it themselves. The point is, we all have opportunities in our business to grow and improve. Blogging is an easy improvement to accomplish.
Don’t be scared of writing – get some initial support
Many of our clients are scared to write for the public. They consider themselves “better talkers” than writers. Guess what? That’s ok! We can actually help you learn how to turn your talking into a quick blog article. We can even write the articles for you if you like until you get comfortable doing it yourself.
[button link=”http://www.wilsonmediaconsulting.com/contact-wilson-media-consulting/” color=”orange”]HELP ME! I need help with this whole blogging thing…[/button]