How and Why You Should Start a Blog for Your Website | iNet inSights - Internet Answers that Give you the Advantage

A Blog is for Life, Not Just for Christmas

11th March 2009

A blog on any website can be a great asset in helping a business generate traffic to its website, building site loyalty and communicating with customers. But how do you go about getting one off the ground?

One of the requests we often get from our clients is “Can we have a blog on our website?”. The answer to this question is always “yes” but hang on a mo if this is you! Let’s take a step back here and think about why you want one.

A couple of years ago the question was always “Can we have a message board?” as these were perceived to be ‘in thing’ to have on a website at the time. Yet when installed, few clients took the time to maintain, develop and police these boards and as such no benefit was ever gained from having one on their site in the first place; so a few months later we often found ourselves being asked to remove them.

The latest ‘must have’ for any site seems to be a Blog and requests from our clients seem to reflect this. However I feel we’re in danger of coming full circle and revisiting “message board land” if we’re not careful.

Because of their every changing content, their ability to ‘ping’ other sites that automatically distribute their content; blogs make great fodder for the search engines and as such can be a great promotional tool for any website. Similarly by their very nature they encourage interactivity through their ability to accept and display reader comments. This helps build reader loyalty and in turn; website traffic through direct visits and link-backs.

However, what most people don’t realise is that there is a skill to writing engaging posts for a blog, techniques that need to be adhered to and time set aside to write regular material. Having a blog on your website is a long term commitment.

The trap that most businesses fall into is that the initial giddiness of having the blog soon gives way to apathy to such an extent that eventually it becomes a stagnant feature on the site.

So to prevent businesses considering a blog for their site, from falling into this trap; I’ve put together my top ten tips for keeping your blog an active participant on your website:

Have an Objective In Mind. Before you start, make a conscious decision as to what purpose your blog will achieve. Is it to ‘connect’ on a personal level with your clients, is it to announce company news or events, is it to advise your clients of useful industry knowledge or will it be a customer support tool? Whatever your blog’s objective, decide what your strategy is going to be at the outset and base your posts on that going forward.
Assign Responsibility. Appoint someone in your organisation to be responsible for writing/collating blog posts and maintaining the blog. Make it part of their job description if necessary, not just a “do it when you have time” task. If there’s only you in your business, make writing posts part of your normal routine.
Schedule Time. Block out time each week or each month to write your blog articles and stick to it. Regular consistent postings build loyalty to your blog as readers will come to expect regularly posted content.
Be Personal. A funny anecdote or interesting story will help build a friendly face for your business. Just make sure the story is relevant to the topic and objectives of your blog. Injecting a bit of personality into your writing will help establish yourself as someone clients can relate to. In doing so you’ll also be building trust.
Get Emotional. Many corporate blogs are dry and boring and as a result are pretty much unreadable. Don’t fall into this trap. Try and fill your posts with a bit of emotion as Sally Ormond explains in her blog post.
Get Noticed. Write post titles that grab attention and encourage readers to spend time reading the stuff that you post. A post of the Copyblogger site offers some great headline writing tips.
Keep a Lid On It. Today’s world is increasingly divided along political and religious lines. If you reveal your thoughts on controversial issues there will be some clients who’ll no longer be willing to support your business. So keep politics, religion and controversy out of your business blogging, regardless of how strongly you feel about an issue.
All Readers are Potential Customers. Respond to every comment and e-mail that your blog generates from its readers in a prompt and courteous manner. Answer every question to the best of your abilities. Enforce a strict comment policy to ensure your blog comments are a productive place. Your readers are potential clients and will generate an impression of your business based upon the way you manage your blog. Take the time to do this well.
Keep Up to Date. Make sure you keep abreast of the issues that are important in your industry. Reinterpreting potentially complex issues that crop up and that are important to your customers, into a digestible format will help build your credibility as a ‘trusted source’ and make your blog popular.
Enjoy It. Many bloggers find blogging therapeutic and enjoy the process. You should do the same. If your blogging becomes a chore then this will come across in your writing style, so get yourself in the right frame of mind and enjoy.