Add a Blog to Build Relationships, Gather Market Data and Increase Search Engine Rankings

If you’ve talked to me personally about web design or if you’ve followed my blog for any length of time you know that I’m a big fan of blogs.  In fact, I’d go so far to say that unless you’re building an ecommerce store you may want to consider using Wordpress as the platform for any site that you think about building in the future.

Here are a few reasons I believe this:

1. Google and the other search engines love Wordpress blogs.  Without getting into the details here blogs will rank higher than static sites more quickly and for more search terms than the average static site.
2. You can update your blog yourself.  Before I learned how to build sites one of my pet peeves was depending on programmers to update the content on my sites.  It was expensive and it took too long.  Wordpress is so easy, if you have the ability to write an email, you’ll be able to update your blog yourself.  This is huge.
3. By sharing more of what is happening in your business and your life, your customers and prospects feel as though they know you better and are more apt to do business with you.
4. When you allow visitors to leave comments or ask questions on your blog you’re doing two things.  First, you’re building a community around yourself and your business – positioning yourself as the expert.  Second, you’re getting some excellent market research for free.  You’ll find that visitors will tell you exactly where their “pains” are and you can adapt your products and services to solve those pains.
5. By updating your site on a regular basis you’re doing another two things.  First, you’re giving your visitors a reason to come back to see what is new.  Second, you’re giving the search engines a reason to rank your site higher as they love new content.

In my opinion, if your current site is not getting the traffic or the search engine rankings that you’re looking for, the fastest and easiest solution is to add a blog to your current site.  It can be set up to target those search terms that you want to rank for and you should be able to see results very quickly.

Finally, blogging does not have to consume your life. In fact, it doesn’t have to take any of your time at all if set up properly.  Contact me to discuss whether adding a blog or building a new blog for your business makes sense.