10 reasons why small businesses should blog

Blogging is almost the grandfather of social media. There are millions of blogs and bloggers worldwide, some read by millions, others by only a few.

But, done properly, blogs can be a very important part of social media marketing for small businesses. Here’s why:

1. Convey your brand personality – even the best websites can be a bit dull. The best way to spice up your site is to include a blog. Here you can be more informal and get across your personality and the personality of your brand
2. Demonstrate your knowledge, experience or expertise - blogging is a great way to demonstrate that you know what you are talking about. By going into greater depth on a subject you will engage with your visitors and demonstrate your knowledge
3. Make your website feel alive and up to date - static business websites can often feel as though they are ignored and are rarely updated. A blog will give regular, dynamic content that is changing on a frequent basis
4. Give your customers added value – by blogging regularly, you can give visitors yet another reason to come back and visit your site, especially if you are using RSS or Twitter to send out updates about your recent posts
5. Help with search engine optimisation – a blog is a great way to build extra visibility with the search engines. Make sure your content is relevant and includes plenty of your popular search keywords
6. Give visitors a reason to buy – whilst your website will give visitors lots of information about your products or services, your blog will offer a way for you to demonstrate why they are important or valuable. This could be through tips, guidance or possibly even case studies
7. Become a thought leader – by blogging on a regular basis, you will build up a following in your industry and this will improve your recognition and publicity far and beyond your traditional customer base
8. Valuable content for other social media channels – with so many social media networks out there, the challenge is often knowing exactly what content to share. Having regular blog posts provides a vast array of new, fresh content that you can tweet or share to your heart’s content!
9. Show you care – the time and effort that you dedicate to blogging will show to your website visitors that you really care about this business and are happy to go that extra mile
10. Embrace the blogosphere – blogging isn’t the end of the matter. If you are really going to make a blogging strategy successful, you need to be out there in the blogosphere commenting on other blogs and joining in the conversation. If you do this, your blog will be better known and your traffic will really start to grow

What else is there? What other reasons do you have for why small businesses should blog? Let us know in the comments!