Blogs are just as important to your online presence as business cards are to your offline presence, maybe even more so. If you don’t have a business card with you, you can at least write down your information on the back of a receipt; Well, it might not be the most professional, but if you can impress with your charisma, the shiny business card is the least of your worries. With blogs… well, if you don’t have a blog, there’s no way to write down your information and pass it around the Internet. So, have a blog!
Professionals in all industries make the same excuses about blogging: I don’t have time, I’m not a writer, I don’t know how to blog, I’m not a web designer… But there are plenty of options for hard working professionals who are “too busy” to blog. To get started, hire an SEO professional and blog writer; This will be one of the smartest marketing funds you’ll ever spend. Even if you opt to run your own blog, a consultation with an SEO professional can give you ideas, and you’ll have a better chance when you have some blogging education to work with.
Using an SEO specialist to handle your blog, especially if you hire a small contractor, will almost always give you a good return on investment. Because? Because it helps the visibility of your website on Google, Bing and Yahoo! searches by allowing you to use competitive keywords that link to the index page and subpages of your site. A blog also gives potential customers browsing your site a place to go for information, creates links to your website and other places on the web, gives you a place to post your YouTube videos, and more.
Chances are, an SEO professional running a blog for you is also familiar with Twitter, Facebook, and online bookmarking tools. These are all free services that will power up your blog and website. Whether you are a small business owner or the head of a law firm, hiring a freelance blogger and SEO writer to handle your blog will boost your online presence and not take away your valuable time.
Keep in mind that the blog needs to be taken care of on a constant basis: a good rule of thumb is three blogs a week or one new post every other day. If you or your blogger have time for more, this is an even better scenario. To keep your costs down, perhaps have the hired blogger write two or three posts a week while you handle one or two more. But again, consistency is very important – make sure there is communication on both ends so that if one party isn’t going to blog, the other (or even a guest blogger) can fill in the gaps.
Web professionals, including bloggers and SEO specialists, are generally best found through networks. If you have a friend or colleague who has used a blogger to their satisfaction, ask for the blogger’s information. You’re much more likely to get the results you want this way because there’s an established positive track record, and you won’t get that from the Yellow Pages or a Google Search for an SEO blogger in your area.
No matter what, every small business should have a blog. Setting one up in WordPress or Blogger takes two minutes, but if you’d rather have one professionally integrated into your website, talk to your web developer, he or she may know a good blog writer too!