My Business Blog Could Kick Your Website’s A@#

I just read Suzanne Falter-Barns’ post on ProBlogger: Have Blogs Killed Conventional Websites? and I’d like to put in my 2 cents.

Used to be everyone was struggling to keep up with competitors just by having a website. Now if you don’t have a business blog you’re behind. Forget for a moment that you’re not web-savvy, if that’s true, and look at the benefits of blogs over websites. I’ll borrow from Suzanne’s list and add my own.

-Blogs are easier to update. Sites like WordPress make it simple to upload posts instantly, so as soon as you think of a topic, you can write it and post it within minutes. With websites, you likely have to call your IT or web design guy to get anything changed.

-Business blogs help you identify your market. Because you’ll blog on many different topics within your niche (for me, I cover press releases, marketing online and blogging for business and can easily track which are the most popular topics) you can see what gets the most hits. Once you know that, play up to it or offer services or products on that topic.

-Blogs get noticed more frequently than websites. Spiders that crawl for search engines like ever-changing content, and since that’s a characteristic of a blog, you’ll be up, running and noticed sooner than your website will.

All this being said, a blog shouldn’t take the place of your website. The two can work together in perfect harmony. Link to your blog from your website and vice versa. Refer to your company website in your business blog posts. Whatever you do, just don’t underestimate the potential a blog has for getting you new business.