8 Reasons Why You Should Have A Blog

Posted by Madhavi on Aug 24, 2010 in Blogging | 0 comments

One of the best things to happen to you when you get a website is that you can have a blog on it!

Look around you (on the Internet, of course) and you’ll see a number of websites that have a blog on them. Some of them are doing amazingly well, some are doing good, and some not so good. And yet, these blogs persist. In fact, blogs are one of the fastest growing mediums of communication across the Internet today.

Don’t you wonder what it is all about? And why is it so terribly important for you to have a blog? Lets look into it…

There are a number of reasons why it is very important for your website to have a blog. Today, lets look at 8 of the most important reasons why you should have a blog.

1. Make Your Point

A Blog is a place where you express your opinions and thoughts and ideas. It is a place where you can be yourself and write stuff that you want.

Blogs are an excellent platform for you to make your point and talk about what you think of something.

When you have a blog on your corporate website, it can become a place where you talk about your work and how it affects you and others and why it is important for you.

2. Establish Yourself As An Expert

When you have a blog, it becomes a place where you talk about your work – your company’s work and its products or services. You can talk about what specific and specialized things you offer and the difference that they can make to your clients in their work / life.

And in so doing, you establish yourself as an expert in that field or area or subject. Essentially, the blog allows you to establish yourself as someone who knows his subject well and can talk about it to others.

3. Show Off

Your blog becomes a place where you can show off what you know. It can also become a showcase of your company’s latest product / service offerings.

When you have a blog, it becomes a place where you can share your latest news details and talk about the new breakthroughs and developments your company has made. In effect, this adds to the marketing and advertising strategy of your company.

4. Brand Name Generation and Building

As you know, your website is the basis of your presence on the Internet. And so your website is transformed into the face of your company (on the Internet).

Thus, your blog and the latest information that it offers can add to the value of your website by becoming a wonderful tool of brand name generation and brand building for your company.

5. Interact

Your blog becomes the platform where you engage with your clients and interact with them in real time. The blog becomes a place where you interact with your key staff members and stakeholders.

Engagement and Interaction are the key to creating a very positive image – and your blog provides you with such a perfect platform to do so.

6. Meet People

People follow blogs in their RSS readers and are aware of all your goings-on via regular updates of the blog. And when they like something you have written, or they have thoughts to share about it, they comment on your blog.

Your blog thus becomes a place where you meet new people who share the same interests and like the same subjects as you. This interaction brings you in contact with new people – helping you network better.

7. Plug It Into Your Social Networking Websites

The posts that you put up on your blog can very easily be plugged into your social networking websites. A variety of tools are available (for free too!) which can help you ‘tweet’ your latest blog update on your Twitter site, or add that post onto your FaceBook Page.

Social Networking Websites are the places where you can find many of your customers – and with the help of your blog, you can share your information where they are more likely to find it.

8. Make Money

And last, but not the least, your blog becomes a wonderful means for you to make money!

While there are several ways (like Google AdSense) where you can make money directly off of your blog, the blog also becomes a means for you to make money indirectly.

Your blog becomes a showcase of your knowledge and talent, and directs traffic towards your product / service offering. And that is the best way for you to make money from it.

In Conclusion…

Your blog is a wonderful method of making your words and thoughts known to the world. And it can also be a wonderful method for you / your company to stay connected and attract more clients for your business.

So what are you waiting for? Get online and get yourself a blog right away!

Resources

Here are some (free) places where you can get started:

1. Blogger.Com – A good place to start. Basic and Advanced levels of blog-geekery. Belongs to Google so you can use your Google credentials to start off!
2. WordPress.Com – The most fantastic blogging platform ever! If you want to graduate to hosting your own blog one day, then this is the best way to learn some of the basic fundamentals of WordPress and get your feet wet!
3. Tumblr.Com – Another wonderful blogging platform for those of you who like to share short snippets of text, or music, or links, or images. Essentially, it is a place where you can share a bit more than a Twitter update and a bit less than a full blown blog post.
4. Posterous.Com – This one is for those of us who can’t be bothered with using blogging interfaces and what not! Just send ‘em an e-mail and your blog post gets updated with the contents of your message! Cool, eh!