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Should My Home Business Have a Blog?
It's fair to say that blogging has taken the Internet by storm over recent years. And it's no surprise that today there are hundreds of thousands of new blogs being launched every day.
But as a home-based business owner, should I have a blog?
To put it bluntly, if you conduct any part of your business over the internet, then Yes, you should have a blog.
So what is a blog?
Wikepedia describe a blog as ..... a weblog (usually shortened to blog) is a web-based publication consisting primarily of periodic articles (normally in reverse chronological order). Although most early weblogs were manually updated, tools to automate the maintenance of such sites made them accessible to a much larger population, and the use of some sort of browser-based software is now a typical aspect of "blogging".
You might be thinking that to set up a blog is far too advanced for me, but that is furtherest from the truth. Blogger.com is a Google-owned hosted blogging platform that is 100% free to use and literally takes only minutes to set up and start posting.
Secondly, you might be thinking it's going to cost too much. Wrong! The only cost is your normal web hosting. You don't even have to purchase a new domain for your blog. It can be easily attached as a sub-domain to your current business website eg: http://blog.MyBusiness.com or as a directory: www.MyBusiness.com/blog/.
So why should your home-based business have a blog? Will it benefit me?
The truth is, a blog is just one part of your marketing strategy, although it can quite easily end up being the most valuable and cost-effective way of marketing your business to new and existing clients.
Come to see your blog as a means of getting closer to your intended market.
With a blog, you are giving your home business a personality. You are chatting informally with your market and building that much sought after long-term relationship and trust.
With credibility and trust being what separates successful home business to those that fail, a well-delivered blog can help build a strong rapport with your customers, via you offering insights into your business and your industry. In a low-pressure setting (ie: there should be no hard selling at all), you are networking with your customers in a way that humanizes your business.
So how can a blog work for my home business?
Let's take an example. Your business (which by the way, you run from home) sells PDA add-ons.
By including a blog as an addition to your e-commerce site you could deliver news, facts, figures, views ... in fact, anything to do with your industry.
You can have your rant and raves on topics close to you. You could offer inside tips on using PDA's. You could provide links to other sites of interest that your customers would appreciate.
Your market will love you for your openness and willingness to chat informally, and in time you become perceived as an expert in your field.
But a word of warning. Don't start up a blog just to push sales, offering little but mere "buy from me now" posts. This is a sure-fire way of actually losing credibility.
If you view a blog as a way of communicating better with your customers (ie: talking 'with them' rather than 'to them') then you are well on your way to blogging success and more importantly ... business success.
Martin Neumann is publisher of HomeOfficeVoice.com ... for the internet-savvy home business entrepreneur, HomeOfficeVoice offers news, reviews and commentary in the world of online home business.
Deadspin, NY - 19 hours ago
Bookmark this tag page, drop the RSS in your reader, or just keep the page open and refresh constantly (you had tons of practice on that last year). ...
ReadWriteWeb, CA - 18 hours ago
Some of the main terms of the Web 2.0 world like 'RSS,' or 'cloud computing' have also been on a steady downward trajectory, while 'blogging' is still ...
PC World - 12 hours ago
In a bundle integrated and maintained by SpikeSource, SuiteTwo included blog publishing software from Six Apart, RSS content syndication software from ...
Minneapolis Star Tribune, MN - Jan 5, 2009
You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed. ...
Huffington Post, NY - 21 hours ago
I've got a Twitter account, mailing list and blog set up, so feel free to follow, subscribe and add to your RSS reader, as you wish! ...
PWO, France - 23 hours ago
Take the time to publish an RSS/Atom/XML feed. You can do this very easily on a blog hosting site such as Blogger. 4. Take care in choosing the titles of ...
ScienceBlogs
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Macworld, CA - Jan 7, 2009
I’m not much of a sharer—good grief, isn’t blogging and tweeting enough?—but many of my friends are. Their shared stories, alas, do not appear in Byline. ...
WebProNews, KY - Jan 6, 2009
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