Do You Blog For Business?

We're often asked about blogging and why it's so important to the week to week management of your website. SiteSuite's latest CMS tools include blogging tools to help you write and publish news articles of interest to your customers and website visitors.

If you care about being indexed by Google, then you should maintain a regular blog. Why? Because Google loves new content!

Keeping a regular blog needn't be difficult or too taxing of your time but regardless of this, the benefits are many and far outweigh any perceived negatives. In fact, blogging should be a weekly part of your website maintenance and general upkeep, if not a major part of your overall online marketing strategy.

Here are some tips on maintaining a blog and why we believe you should do so.

What are the benefits of having a blog?

- Clients have another way to communicate with you

- You keep clients informed about products, services, achievements, product tips and more

- You receive feedback from your clients

- Your business becomes more approachable, ‘real', accountable and trustworthy. Clients and potential clients get to know the real people behind the company name, as you communicate with them regularly and answer their questions

- You give clients and the search engines (e.g. Google) a reason to return to your site by updating it regularly with fresh information. Your site is, after all, a 24-hour sales, marketing and publicity department. You want people to return to your site and tell others about it

- Potential clients find your business when a search for information leads them to your blog articles on that topic

- You show clients that your business is an ongoing concern and that you are constantly improving what you do

- You create a client community by allowing people to post comments

- Your clients help generate fresh content for your site

- You establish yourself as an expert in your field

- You can release information right away, instead of waiting to print and distribute material. You can always re-use your blog content later in printed flyers, advertisements and newsletters

- You help clients find information by putting articles into categories

- You get a second chance to convey information to people who don't read all the e-mails and flyers they receive. They can visit your site when it suits them.

Stuck for ideas? What could your blog include?

- Product reviews
- New product releases
- Instructions for using your products
- Opinion pieces to attract attention and feedback 
- Company or industry Events
- Client testimonials
- Links to newspaper stories or television clips about your business
- Case studies with before-and-after pictures
- Publicity releases
- Awards your business has won
- Interviews with clients, staff, business partners, guest speakers
- Competitions
- Answers to frequently asked questions
- A portfolio of completed projects
- Product specifications
- Staff profiles
- ‘Teaser' campaigns, gradually revealing upcoming products, services, projects or events
- Recipes using your products
- Excerpts from your book
- Industry news

Using the new SiteSuite Content Management tools, here's how to create and publish a blog / news article.

Inside your SiteSuite Dashboard/CMS, navigate to: modules > news articles