“Martin, what is blogging and how does it work?”…a question I get asked time and time again.

Quite simply many do not understand what a Blog is, what a Blog does and how it all works. So I am putting together this 2 part Blog to explain the following:

Part 1…

  1. Blogging an introduction
  2. Why would you want a Blog for your business?
  3. The Pros and the Cons of Blogging
  4. How do you start to Blog?

Part 2…Read Part 2 here

  1. 20 essential tips when Blogging to gain maximum exposure and benefits

Ok, let`s get started…

Blogging an introduction

Blogging an introduction

Blogging is one of the oldest forms of Social Media, it is short for Weblog and is basically an online journal or diary that is related to your brand and industry.

The benefits of Blogging we will come to later on in this article, but quite simply a regular Blog will help improve your brand awareness, search ranking and web traffic amongst many other things. The other beauty of Blogging is that it is free! Yes you have to commit a bit of time to it but essentially it is a fantastic and free method of marketing your business, products and services. Are you interested yet?

Blogging is not just restriced to writing a Blog post, you can add images or create a video Blog on a regular basis and each Blog post will stay on your website usually with the latest posts listed in chronological order for all your visitors to see. Therefore another major benefit is that it helps keep visitors on your site, increases what is called `stickiness` and help lowers your `Bounce Rate` which in turn gets rewarded by Google.

Why would you want a Blog for your business?

Ok, so what use is a Blog to your business?

Frankly a business Blog has many advantages and can be very powerful in attracting traffic, the right traffic come to that, to your website! It will also give your business a voice, a personality and help show the world that you are an authority within your industry. It also builds trust and credibility for your brand which in today`s world of Social Media and word of mouth recommendations is essential.

A consistent and interesting Blog will help you engage with your target audience and as I mentioned earlier it will keep them on your website, hopefully they will read other interesting posts on your site or even go on to look at your products, services or even contact you.

A regular updated Blog will keep your website fresh and with up to date and industry related content Google will love you! (Tweet this)

One of the main advantages is that it will certainly help with your SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) and your search ranking. Compared to a competitor who does not Blog it will do you a very big favour in the eyes of Google! Surely you must be interested now?

The Pros and the Cons of Blogging

The Pros and the Cons of Blogging

Yes, there are many advantages of Blogging but there are also some negatives, let`s look at them here…

Advantages of Blogging

  1. Increase brand awareness
  2. Increase traffic to your website
  3. Improve your search ranking
  4. Build customer loyalty
  5. Enhance your position as an authority in your industry
  6. Keep visitors on your website
  7. Increase customer engagement
  8. Help with sales leads and enquiries
  9. Free to do!
  10. Helps with content curation for your Social Media

Disadvantages of Blogging

  1. It can be time consuming
  2. For it to be successful you need to be consistent, have a strategy and a good, targeted audience to Blog to
  3. You need to enjoy it…if not look to outsource to a reputable copywriter

How do you start to Blog?

Ok so all of this sounds fantastic but where do you start?

If you are already using a website platform such as WordPress then it is simple to integrate, otherwise you need to look at Blogger or WordPress as a stand-alone Blog publishing platform. Ideally you want to keep your Blog within your current website. You may want to speak to your web developer or look at these to help you get started.

I hope this has helped you?

In my next Blog post I will look at 20 essential tips when Blogging to help you get started.

Have fun Blogging and if you need any help please get in touch.

Until next time
Martin