Not so long ago, it was necessary for small businesses to have a website just to compete – just having a web site used to be enough. Now businesses must not only have a website, but a user friendly one, and a website that is frequently updated. Today, business websites must have a blog.

Why have a blog and what is it going to do for me?
Today, consumers are increasing wary and cautious. Hard sell sales copy just doesn’t work like it used to.

Visitors to your website need some convincing before they will contact or buy from you. At least with a physical location buyers are re-assured they have somewhere to go back to if there is a problem. Hopefully the store will still be there! Online, there is no such re-assurance. Web sites come and go. Visitors to your site have no real reason to trust or believe what you are saying.

Blogging is one way for visitors to get to know you. They can see a track record of postings on your blog going back over time, which give at least the appearance, if not the reality of permanence. Plus they can read what you have to say and consider your opinion. See if you actually know what you are talking about. This is further re-assurance. After checking you out, visitors can then contact you, or purchase your products with some knowledge of what they are getting.

Another big advantage of blogs is rankings on the search engines. Most search engines, and especially the big three (Google, Yahoo and MSN) use a ‘freshness factor’ in their ranking algorithms. After all, why go to a site that hasn’t been updated recently? Most people prefer to visit sites with fresh up to day information that is updated regularly.

Blogging is easy. Don’t be intimidated by a lack of technical expertise. Blogging software is easy to use and does not require technical knowledge. If you can use Microsoft WORD, you can blog! It really is that simple.

Blogging really gets your message out. Blog entries can be syndicated in the same way that news stories are syndicated to member newspapers by companies such as AP wire, and Reuters. Imagine this: you write an article every 2 weeks on your particular area of expertise, and it goes out to hundreds of people who are passionately interested in this subject area. Syndication is a powerful tool for any business to directly contact people.

Blogging is a 2-way conversation. Visitors to your site can leave comments on your posts and enter into dialog with you and with other visitors. This creates community (with your website and business as the focal point) and gives business owners direct dialog and candid feedback from visitors and invaluable marketing information.