What Every Business Needs to Know About Blogs

Thinking about launching a blog for your company? The first question I would ask you is this: What do you want your blog to do for you?

There are many benefits of blogging that I covered in a previous article Serious About Getting Hired: Get Blogging. Along with these benefits, consider what we believe is the most powerful benefit of all—your blog’s ability to gain Google ranking on your desired keywords and drive traffic to your company’s website.

We have talked to several companies who have expressed satisfaction with their keyword placement as a result of paid search engine optimization (SEO) services. While it is not our intention to discount such services, the reality is that you can achieve similar results organically through blogging techniques that leverage Google’s keyword indexing methodologies. Not all blog platforms can deliver this valuable SEO benefit, however. In fact, there is only one solution that does—hosting your blog on your website domain. We recommend the free Open Source software from WordPress.

Why Host Your Own Blog?

Bloggers who publish from sub-domain blogging platforms such as Blogger, TypePad, WordPress.com and others are unable to capture the Google ranking benefits because their articles are published and indexed by Google with a URL attached to the sub-domain. This will drive traffic to the sub-domain blog and not your website. While it is nice that your article got read, getting the reader to your website then becomes an obstacle to overcome.

Integrating the blog with your existing website can be as easy as adding a new navigational link from your website to the page which will hold your blog. Many third party developers have created WordPress templates, also called themes, which can be customized with your website’s color scheme to create an almost seamless experience for your website visitors.

The True Web 2.0 Website

My business partner, Dean and I talk about Web 2.0 as being a revolution in the way that businesses communicate. Thankfully, it is a shift from the hard sell to giving value to those we connect with. In this spirit, many businesses, ours included, have made their website landing page their blog. For those who chose this route, WordPress provides a low-cost, user friendly foundation from which to build out an entire Web 2.0 powered website.

Questions? Feel free to pose them in this space. We’re here to help.