We quite often get asked several similar questions by our clients, but two of the most common are, we feel, linked. These two questions are: Why should I have a small business blog? and What is the most valuable thing we can do for our online marketing? {Tweet}

Now, there are potentially quite a few answers to both of those questions, depending on what your business does, who your target audience is, and how they are most likely to find and view your website. Responsive design is important, as is being social…but often a blog is one of the most important elements for a website and it’s something we’re keen to talk about here! {Tweet}[responsive]

[/responsive]

Why Should I Have A Small Business Blog?

In short, blogs are your content source and they are important for several reasons. Part 1 of our guide to small business blogging looks at the first of many reasons for having a blog – creating content and the benefits for readers and search engines. {Tweet}

Firstly, blogging gives you the opportunity to create different, fresh and engaging content – which in turn means that your readers are more likely to come back to your site to see what’s new. There’s only so much your ‘About Us’ page can say, and only so often it can change, but with a blog you can add new articles as often as you like and cover a range of different topics, or the same topic from different angles. Our blog ranges from basic ways to use Twitter more effectively, to consumer psychology and how small businesses can utilise it more effectively!

Not only is blogging good for your readers, it’s also good for Google and the other search engines – and for your chances of being found by them! Search engines like content that is fresh and relevant, and if you link your blog to your homepage (we can do this for you), it can also mean that your home page isn’t seen as a static page – instead it too is a dynamic page, with different content appearing there every time a reader visits. {Tweet}

In addition, every single blog post you produce also creates another page which can be indexed by the search engines and for which you can be found by someone looking for information or an opinion – this gives you a position of thought leadership, as you are providing information, as well as ensuring the reader is already positive about you as you are answering their query!

Look out for part 2 in this series, where we will be discussing how blogs can help with your social media! In addition, if you’d like to find out a bit about how we can help you with a blog for your business, take a look at our service page for business blogging or get in touch! Also, it’s worth visiting this post on How To Start A Blog from www.firstsiteguide.com.

[hr style=”3″ margin=”10px 0px 10px 0px”]

If you liked this post, why not sign up to our monthly newsletter in the footer? You can also sign up to receive notification of each new post as it is published using the form on the right hand side of this page. In addition, please feel free to follow Rippleout Marketing on Rippleout Marketing Twitter, the Rippleout LinkedIn page, or on Rippleout Marketing's Google+ page.

We welcome comments from all our readers - so please feel free to express your views in the space below.