Blogs, Weblogs, Blogging are all phrases not immediately obvious in terms of my business I hear you say. At WadeGair we advise something different and let me explain why.

First things first: What exactly is a blog?

Well according to Wikipedia: “A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. “Blog” can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog”

For a slightly more visual explanation, take a look at this video from the excellent www.commoncraft.com website.

So, essentially a blog is a series of news articles, listed in chronological order, each blog entry related to the subject matter you are ‘blogging’ about. Nothing new really I hear you say, in fact it is possible you already have a news section on your website so what’s all the excitement about? Well, from my perspective the opportunity that blogging presents a business has nothing to do with the process of listing news on your website, specifically it is all about the way you use your blog.

If you want to see a really good example of a blog, I recommend you read the BBC’s Robert Peston online blog which you can see here. Informal but informative you can almost hear Robert’s dulcet tones in the words he writes (or maybe I watch BBC News 24/listen to Radio 4 too much!). I should also point you to one of our client’s blogs – Waterstink.com, run by two academics, Roger Ford and Duncan Thomas who have many concerns and opinions about the Water Industry and provide an alternative view on water and sanitation. Now, this may not be your cup of tea but without a doubt you’ve got to admit it’s fascinating!

OK, so that is blogging, now take a step back

So ask yourself the question – “Why do I have a website in the first place“. Typically the answer to this goes something like “well EVERYONE has a website these days…“, “you know you just have to have a website…” and of course “Its about showing our products/services/brand to our customers of course…“.  All true, but lets not forget one more fundamental reason – when your customers come to your website they want to learn what your business is all about, after all in all likelihood they are considering spending some money on your services or products.  They want to get a ‘feel‘ for what kind of business you are, to learn about you.

This is where the cardinal sin of websites comes into play. Yes, virtually every business has a website these days but once they have had lashings of care and attention heaped on them being built, most businesses, well, sort of forget about them – they go stale very quickly.

And this is where you are missing a trick.

Are you using your most powerful asset?

Guess what your most powerful asset is? Well, it’s you!

You have been successful in business to date because of you. Yes you have great products, great services, your prices are competitive and your reputation is second to none however, chances are your business has been engaged by a customer because at some point they have determined that you are an expert in your field based upon what you have said to them before you were engaged.

I’ll give you a simple example. I recently had a large, hugely unattractive and slightly dangerous tree chopped down in my garden. The company I chose were not the first I saw and they were not the cheapest. The guys I chose was the company who when they came to quote also told me about two other small trees that I needed to keep an eye on because they could cause root damage in another five years or so. Brilliant I thought – I’ll use these guys, they are the experts using their expertise…

Is “trees to blogs” a tenuous link?

Possibly, but I hope you get my point and you see that the same logic applies to your website.

Providing just a little bit of ‘narrative’ to your business is at the very least interesting to your potential customers and at best hugely promotes your business. To quantify this, another of our long standing clients is Brooks and Ware Architects based in Farnham, Surrey. Brooks and Ware have been running a blog within their website since January 2008 and on my last check, their blog has been read by people in 14 countries worldwide!

Visitors from the United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, France, Spain, Germany, Norway, Romania, Malta, China and Australia are learning about this Surrey company’s greatest asset – their expertise!

Do it and enjoy the benefits

These days building or ideally integrating a blog within your website is neither difficult nor expensive. At WadeGair we build custom blogs and more frequently integrate the excellent WordPress into the sites we build. This means that anyone, and I mean anyone can update your website with no difficulty, you don’t need to know HTML, Javascript or anything else for that matter!

And so I come back to my original point – why should you business Blog? Well, to pick a few:

• A business blog provides you with an always up-to-date website – it will never look tired or stale and you don’t have to ‘get hold of the web guy’ to make a change
• It allows you to take advantage of Web 2.0 tools such as RSS feeds
• It makes your website “oh so” Search Engine Friendly – Google just loves RSS feeds
• It allows you to write blog entries that your customers want to read about
• Lets your customers read about your expertise – possibly helping them make the decision to buy from you
• By creating blog entries based around your business that promote your ‘keywords’ and ‘key phrases’ you are doing your own business promotion

So our advice is to save some of your SEO money for a while and look at how a business blog can start to make your website work harder for your business.