To start a blog to promote your business. Should you? Not until you read this

Do you wish you, as someone who is into business blogging, had a blog that netted you more loyal customers? It’s a good wish.

One that can be granted when you get your domain name, pay for web hosting, and decide to work a few hours a day on your brand new blog, with the aim of turning it into a success.

Previously, we have looked at the 4 reasons why every business needs to blog. Then went further, mentioning, in the same post, how blogs can be used to turn ideas into small businesses and the only two options you have on this matter of to blog or not to.

From the title of this post, it seems like I am taking a different stance today. Am i? We’ll find out in a minute.

But first…

Understand why businesses blog before you do anything else

Why do they do it?

1. Businesses and brands know blogging is an easy way to get new leads and paying customers

How? They think of a solution they want to provide (and to whom) and then they sit and come up with post titles which later become drafts filled with useful information.

Those drafts are edited and proofread then published and made public, accessible to anyone with an internet connection.

Someone looking for such a solution may stumble across their post, read it, love it then stay on their blog reading some more: about them, their products and services.

Say they want more and the business offers better and premium solutions which can be purchased right away, will they buy?

Not everyone will. Some will. Others will ask a number of questions before they open their wallets.

Read this interview to learn more.

2. Blogging is an inexpensive way to promote businesses, products and services

Starting a blog doesn’t cost a lot. You need a domain name and hosting. With the two, you are often ready.

Starting a successful blog however, requires a lot of time.

In the beginning, you will be paying more in time than money – though some say that time is money.

Blogging, it is inexpensive.

3. Businesses are told to embrace content marketing and take advantage of blogging

The reason? More businesses start blogs everyday, which means more crowding – more competition.

The sooner you start the better.

The main reason why they are told to do so is this: blogging actually works.

Businesses that blog regularly, say every week, and post quality content increase their chances of getting more email subscribers

Getting more email subscribers

More email subscribers means more people giving you the permission to connect with them – on a whole new level.

And the subscribers can be easily nurtured into paying customers.

Getting found online by searching for things on the internet

Blogging makes it easy for a business to be found by the increasing number of people turning to search engines and review sites to research businesses, solutions, products and services before they make a purchase offline in the local store or place their order online.

They, in effect, increase their visibility on search engines with every piece of content they publish.

Knowing what works in their online marketing effort

They can do this by simply taking advantage of the different analytics tools available in the market.

With their analysis, they get to easily switch tactics and strategies to suit their needs – doing more of what works for them while rethinking their approach to the tactics and strategies that haven’t showed much promise yet.

Expanding their reach to other markets

Consider two very small businesses, similar in products they market and practices, with lean budgets and limited capital trying to win new customers.

A, which does their marketing like B, decides to create a blog and commit to work on it everyday to turn it into a resourceful site.

Note that B also has a blog, but it was last updated five months ago and is mostly filled with a dozen newsy types of posts about their products and the team behind the company.

A year passes by and these businesses that do almost everything the same way begin to look different – online.

A’s resourceful site attracts customers they wouldn’t normally reach offline.

And so, that little blog of theirs helps them expand their reach and win more market share – attracting even some of B’s customers.

Keeping people’s interests up

How? As mentioned in How to Start a Successful Blog, their blog becomes like a customer care rep that never sleeps.

This works only if the blog is filled with content that answers the questions the prospects and customers have – in a detailed way.

So, all these advantages and I am here ready to tell you…

Why you shouldn’t start a blog for your business just yet?

Why would I do this? Here are a few reasons.

You will quit blogging for your business / company before you see the results you are hoping for

Blogging is a long term game and may be time consuming. If you want to do it for a few weeks or months then quit, you have what it takes but may be you are not ready.

Blogging also takes a lot of work. If you are already overwhelmed by the other aspects of your business, it is going to be hard to stay consistent.

Businesses, the ones that try to stay consistent, often get discouraged because they can blog blog blog for several months before anything good comes out of all their effort.

If you imagine yourself creating new content everyday, publishing a few times a week only to get results that don’t please you, and the thought of this makes you shudder, it could be because you are not ready.

What if you feel ready but just don’t have the time to manage the blog?

Are you ready to do the opposite of what most businesses do – giving up on starting their site until some future unknown date –simply find someone to help you to help you write blog posts – which could mean paying more initially?

Yes. Then there will be no excuse of overwhelm and you will have more time on your hands to focus on those aspects of your business that are already making you feel overwhelmed.

You can find a person that hosts, installs and manages your blog. Here at Niabusiness.com, I can help you do that and more.

Typical hosting may be cheap. Niabusiness‘s may cost a little more.

When you find someone who can help you do all this, you can eliminate some of your fears and actually start the blog with their help even if that means paying more, right?

You are not convinced yet of the benefits a blog can bring you, your company and team

Nothing will easily convince you otherwise unless you start one and commit to making it successful. There are so many case studies and research on the benefits of blogging to businesses.

When will you be convinced to the point where you are ready to give this a try?

You are not ready to create a lot of great content for your business blog

How many blog posts do you need to write before you start getting serious traffic and leads? 1? 10? 25? 50? 100? 500? A thousand? 2000 published blog posts?

It depends on how much web traffic you want. Note, though, that the more content you publish to your site, the more you increase your chances of being found.

I have read about some businesses that saw great things happening when they wrote and consistently published 50-100 posts.

How did they do they do it? They created their own 30 day challenges.

Challenges like this means you have to be ready to do things that takes away your comfort and pushes you closer to your goals.

More content means the likelihood of those landing on your site, sticking around and exploring some more, goes up.

Creating more content and seeing your traffic steadily rise will also motivate you to create better content (of different lengths) more frequently.

If you are not willing to do this and only write a handful of posts, that may take forever to attract traffic, you will be discouraged by the slow growth.

When that happens, it puts you in a position where you are likely to abandon your site.

Creating more content also makes it easy for you to contribute to other blogs, which then results into more exposure for your blog, business, your products and services.