I have this discussion with clients all the time.. ” Why should we have a blog? “. It’s a good question and most customers eyes glaze over. I don’t have the time.. We don’t want to give away our company secrets..Our policy is not to use or allow Social Media… I don’t have anything to write about

Well there are 7 good reasons to start Blogging.

1. It helps your SEO ( Google loves new content )
2. You can engage and understand your customers better.
3. You are seen as an expert in your field, a ” Thought Leader”
4. Great content gets people a reason to keep coming back to your site.
5. Blogs are a much more trusted source than companies press releases and official company PR.
6. It moves customers to a conversion point of trusting and believing enough to buy.
7. By writing you are learning.

Note: Most importantly it helps you improve your rank on search engines and assists in getting found when people enter those important key words in Google. 

So if you are going to start a blog what functions and features should a blog include?

It is better to use a minimalist format ( keep it simple) and preferably a 2 column template design. And have host it on your domain that you have (do not use a  wordpress or typepad domain, you want to improve your own website’s domain SEO not Typepads and have control over the site) 

1. Menu to include

• About us
• Home back to your company website

2. Subscription to be via an RSS Feed and Email (and put these in top menu and right side)

 3. Search feature for blogs on the site 

4. Include the following at the top of each blog post so visitors can add your blog and posts to the following sites

• Digg (Over 20 million  people visit this site every month)
• Reddit (Alexa rank of 664 and a Google page rank of 8.. this means one of the top sites in the world with a large number of inbound links and over 6 million unique visitors a month)
• Delicious (nearly 2 Million unique visitors per month)
• Stumbleupon (over 5 million unique visitors a month)
• Facebook ( over 250 Million subscribers)
• Twitter (No 2 Social Media site and is monitored by search engines and becoming more important for SEO) 

Note: Providing these functions allows people to post your company’s blog onto sites that have millions of visits every month ( I have included some of the numbers of monthly visitors to these sites  each month), also register your Blog with Technorati ( The Blog “Bible” and registry and Search Site) they have over 5 million visitors a month and will help your SEO.  

 5. 2 text boxes in the right panel to include

• A one sentence description of  who your company is
• Your clients

 6. “Connect with us Box” on right panel that includes connecting via the following means

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Subscribe to our Blog RSS

 7. Multi User (allows multiple users to add posts to your company Blog) 

8. Popular Posts Box

 9. Browse by Tag Post Box

 10 Browse by Category

As Google’s search alogorithms are in constant evolution with recency and new unique content becoming an important part of the mix, Blogging is something that your company should not ignore.

So do you think your company should be blogging?