In its simplest format a blog is a diary of events kept on some website for that website owners own record of time and events, but I’m interested in Blogging for Businesses, so how do we go about that?

There are some very powerful proprietary blogging programs available, they are mostly free, and they are specifically designed for the job, these programs can be stand alone and hosted on the program providers servers, they can stand alone being hosted on third party servers and accessed the a regular domain name, or a blog can be an integrated part of a regular website and although using someone else’s program to run the blog, it can be styled to look just like the rest of that website. This is the type of blog I would have as a preference.

Some websites are being built using only these proprietary blogging programs and therefore possibly doing away with webmasters, webdesigners and so on.

Why have a blog?

Everyone here has a story to tell, information to impart and absorb. Wouldn’t it be good if that story or information could be packaged up by you, along with links to other people, places, products, websites, still images and quality moving images with sound. That package is the blog of today and it is within the capability of any of us who can type with one or two fingers.

Almost anything you would broadcast or publish elsewhere would be suitable for you business blog, so cut and paste from any document directly into your blog, so a blog does not need to take a lot of your time, it can be added to or updated from any computer.

What can a blog do for you?

Let’s make up an example, you have a product you want to spread the word about.

Yes, if you have a website you could contact your webmaster, supply them with all the relevant data and wait for your product to appear on your website, hopefully looking something like you envisaged, or, you could log in to your blog management, type in the information you have, following simple instructions regarding how to make typeface Bold , larger, italics etc, how to add images straight from your computer desktop or files, how to add links to other websites and email addresses, then press one button to see the blog as it will appear online, at this point the blog is unpublished, so if you don’t like it or see a mistake, go back into the management section and make alterations, preview again and when you are totally happy with your labours, press “publish” very shortly your blog will be live for all to see, or for you to tell others to look at.

Do and don’ts, Don’ts first

There is a very famous guy at Google called Matt Cutts who gives three simple guidelines about blogging for businesses,

Don’t make hard promises about the future
Don’t trash talk a competitor
Don’t post when you’re angry

There is one other don’t that I’ve heard mentioned, Don’t blog when you are drunk.

These are relevant points and it should be remembered a business blog is a business communication with all the legal implications that brings. Fortunately the writer of a blog entry or the modifier of a blog can go back to that entry and modify it at will, there will be a date stamp on that entry of when it was originated and when it was modified.

Do’s

Regard your blog as a real time advertisement, use it to show off your products.

Place calls to Action

Make references to other respected businesses or institutions this gives credibility by association.

Keep your blog entry on subject, if you want to change the subject, write a separate entry.

Keep updating your blog, more about this in hidden benefits of blogging.

Marketing your blog.

Seems like a funny thing to want to do, but other similar interest businesses and websites may want to know about you, your views or your products. So some bright spark invented something called RSS (Really Simple Syndication) without getting too deep, RSS allows others to get a copy of your blog, in real time and it can allow you to import other blogs content to your website.

Hidden benefits to blogging.

Primarily a good blog will give a website credibility in the eyes of many search engines, due its up to date, relevant content, if each time a search engine visits your website it sees new, relevent content, that search engine will improve the ranking of that website and slowly but surely your website will creep closer and closer to page one and then the top of the natural listings on page one.

Also, every blog entry should be regarded as a press release, you might have some idea which of the press is watching your blog via RSS feeds and every so often it is a good idea to check your website logs to see who is looking at your blog and maybe tailor a blog entry towards them.

I haven’t touched on social networking, encompassing instant messaging, facebook, myspace, twitter, digg, stumble upon , squidoo, furl, reddit, technorati and a plethora of others, which can increase the awareness of the blog in quick time.

If what I have written doesn’t inspire you to go and have a play with this method of communication, you either already know how it works or you have no interest in the subject, in which case, I hope I didn’t bore you too much.

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