Search Engine Optimization

In my 12+ years as an SEO professional, I’ve found that just about every business can benefit from publishing a company blog. It doesn’t matter if it’s B2B or B2C, or what industry your business operates in—a good business blog can be invaluable for your SEO and Internet marketing in general. There are probably hundreds of blog posts out there full of great reasons why you should start a company blog. (I have even written a few such posts myself).

But are there any good reasons to NOT launch a company blog?

If you think launching a blog is enough.
“If you build it, they will come,” doesn’t work with business blogging. You can’t throw up a blog and hope that readers are going to magically appear. It take a lot of work and time to get your blog noticed, attract a loyal readership and build your blog to be a reputable source of industry news and advice. Without a strong content promotion campaign, your blog is like a ship that has never left port. It floats, but doesn’t really do much else of value.

If you don’t have anyone to write new posts.
For most businesses, the number one problem with content marketing is actually creating the content. You may not be the best writer on your staff, you may not have the time to write 2-3 blog posts a week (hint: you do), but you have to find someone who has the skills and the time! Launching a business blog and failing to regularly update it means you’re sitting on stale content. It can negatively reflect on your brand and won’t attract any new readers. What good is an outdated blog?

If you are just doing it for SEO.
Content must always be written for the reader, never the search engines! Yes, a business blog is a critical component of any inbound marketing campaign (which includes SEO), but that can’t be the only reason to decide to launch a business blog. If that’s the only value you can see, you’re focus is too narrow and you’ll end up pigeonholing yourself. Don’t lose the forest for the trees with your blog!

If you’re doing it because you are “supposed” to.
If you aren’t excited to write for your business blog, you’re readers are going to notice. The best blogs have personality and useful insights for their readers. They don’t just rehash the same tired information in the same boring way. Yes, you probably should have a business blog, but there has to be some internal motivation to update it with great content. If you don’t believe in it, no one else will.

I am a huge fan of blogging (obviously so, seeing as how I have been writing for this one for the last four years) for numerous reasons. Content marketing is one of the most critical components of any web marketing campaign because it can be leveraged across all mediums. A blog post isn’t limited to existing solely on that blog. It can be shared on social networking sites, submitted to social bookmarking sites, used to develop your company newsletter and more.

Still not convinced? Here are 7 reasons a company blog can be valuable:

1. Establish yourself as an industry authority
Customers want to purchase from/work with the best in the business. Routinely updating a company blog can help you build brand’s reputation as an industry expert and valuable resource.

2. Help educate your consumers
Having an educated target audience can make it much easier for you to promote your products/services. If potential customers have a firm understanding of your industry, it is easier to position your brand as the solution to their problem. You don’t have to explain as much general information in your messaging and can focus on more important topics.

3. Build your online brand presence
Individual blog posts can rank in the search engines like any page on your website. When optimized to include the most appropriate keywords, your blog can help your increase your brand presence in the SERP for the related long-tail keywords searches.

4. Humanize your brand
People like to do business with other people, not faceless corporations. When you attach an actual name to your blog (whether it be your CEO, VP of Marketing, etc), you are giving your company an actual persona. Having content written by a person and not “Company Name” means you can afford to throw a little style and personality into your posts.

5. Promote your products/services
A business blog should mainly be used to inform and educate, but a little self-promoting post every now and again is perfectly acceptable. Your business blog is the perfect place to announce new product launches or let your readers know about an upcoming tradeshow or conference you’ll be appearing at. Someone who reads your blog has already self-identified themselves as your target audience.

6. Respond to a crisis
When bad news breaks, companies don’t have the luxury of hiding out until it blows over or holding a press conference next week. The public expects a response and they expect it now. Silence is almost never the best option. A company blog is a good place to issue public statements and updates as a situation develops. You want to keep the lines of communication open and transparent.

7. Build links
A company blog can become part of your internal linking structure. Not only should you link relevant posts to each other, but you can also link different blog posts to pages of your website and vice-versa. This kind of horizontal linking can help spread link juice and increase the trust factor of some of your internal pages.

If you are having a hard time approaching your blog and really trying to make it into something powerful for your business you need to approach like it is the only voice of your business. Stop looking at it like it is just a blog and look at it as the most powerful communication tool your business has. Your blog should be a lifeline for your business and not just somewhere to post new content to your website.

Company News:
Use your blog to announce all new company information that might be happening. Whatever it might be write about it in the blog if it has something directly to do with your business in some way. If you got a new product or even a new employee do a nice write up about that news. Some people won’t care but some will enjoy reading about your company news or information.

Industry Knowledge:
Sharing your industry knowledge is a great way to keep having readers come back to see what you have to say. If the industry knowledge will help some people do their job much better you can guarantee their repeat traffic. Don’t worry about giving trade secrets away most people wouldn’t really know what to do with them. Over time you can position yourself an industry leading informative source.

Product Reviews:
Chances are there are some products in your niche or industry that are needed to be able to do your job the right way. Try writing a product review about a piece of equipment, machinery or software needed to get the job done for people in your space. If you put a schedule together on what kinds of products you can write about you will build up a nice stream of traffic over time.

These are just some of the things you can write about. Use a combination of these along with some personality and your blog will go a long way but you have to be patient and persistent. Stick to your schedule and keep your head up and you will be glad you did in the long run.