Reasons why your business needs a blog

As a web host, you might have set up
thousands of blogs for your customers but
never once considered needing one yourself.
Why, you might ask yourself, do you need a
blog? Well, the immediate answer is fairly
simple: check these out:
The Official Microsoft Blog💸
Official Google Blog
AWS Official Blog
Rackspace
If companies like Microsoft, Google, AWS and
Rackspace need a blog, YOU need a blog!
We are only a small company - what do we
need a blog for?
A good blog is an ideal tool for promoting a
web hosting business, or any other business
of any size. Yes, of course you have a
website. But chances are that your website is
big and polished, and perhaps a bit rigid.
Having a blog associated with your website
gives you the potential to quickly and easily
add news and new content to your site
without bringing in a designer and a coder. A
blog is quick, easy and cost-efficient.
But really – why?
Work at home jobs available for you

SEO

As we said, your website is very probably
shinny and has all the bells and whistles, but
none of that really counts with Google. Google
likes content. Google Search now offers
search tools that can find content on websites
that have updated in the last week, day, and
the last HOUR. Sites with new content are
deemed better than websites with fixed
content, so for what might be a reasonably
crass reason, you need a blog to help your
rankings!
Visit the Webmasters forum

Communicating with customers

The standard blog format (see the typical
‘WordPress’-style site) allows the site owner
to add content and visitors to add comments.
This could be absolutely critical for your
business. If you have a new line in servers
and your customers come back to you with
critical comments via your blog, you can fix
the problem today. Blogs give customers a
sense of discourse and they appreciate the
transparency of a company that puts
comments right there on their website.
Communicating with customers – and the rest of
the world
Over the last few years there have been a
number of high profile hacks. This is a terrible
situation for any company, not least a web
host, and when things go this badly wrong, a
blog can be a wonderful tool. Used alongside
social media, a blog can show your customers
– and the rest of the world – that you
acknowledge an issue has taken place, and
that you are doing something about it… you
can blog on an hourly basis, or even every 5
minutes – the more you communicate, the
more serious your efforts to address a
problem appear to be.

Spreading good news

What better way is there of letting your
customers know about discounts and
promotions? Well, of course there is email,
but how would prospective customers get to
know about price cuts and special deals?
Showing your expertise
Well rounded blogs covering specialist areas
of interest of your customers are considerably
more effective than sending customers an
email telling them how smart you are. Blogs
give you the opportunity to show off, but in a
constructive way.

OK – so how do I write a good blog?

When you realize that a blog is for your
customers, not for you, what you should write
on a blog becomes self-apparent. Primarily,
solve customers’ problems and fill them in on
issues that are of concern to them. If the blog
is valuable to customers then it has met its
objective.

Who should write the blog?

Make a blog a team effort – don’t just put
one person in charge, but get a representative
from every department in your organization to
fill customers in on what you do and how well
you do it. Set up a cycle where one
department adds something to the blog every
few days or every week. If the blog gives your
customers memorable insights into your
operation, your company will remain
memorable, and you will never get a better
chance to make a good impression.
Keep up the good work though – an
abandoned blog or one that is poorly
maintained is likely to have a negative effect
on people’s opinions of you. Likewise don’t
get lazy and fill up a blog with pictures of
kittens from Facebook.
They have never made sense anyway.

So how do I do this?

People have busy, busy lives these days and
they have short internet attention spans. Also
bear in mind that your blog content is
competing against those Facebook kittens.
Even though this article is just over 1000
words, don’t follow my lead! Keep posts short
and sweet – 500 words is long enough. If you
have to write more, split a post into viable
sections and make those sections into
separate blog posts.

What if we get negative comments?

Thank your customer/visitor for his/her
candor and set about addressing the issue
and ensuring that all customers/visitors are
fully aware of your efforts to deal with
problems – by blog posts that show them
what you are doing!

How do I know this is working?

If you get negative comments, it’s working!
But if you don’t get any comments this
doesn’t mean that you aren’t getting visitors.
Most web hosting control panels can give you
an idea of how many people are visiting your
blog, but if like me you aren’t a backend
person, add Google Analytics to your blog.
After registration you add two lines of code to
your blog page and then you get to know how
many visitors you receive, where they are
from, and a wealth of other useful
information.
If you are a web host, setting up a blog is
going to be easy and the benefits certainly
outweigh the effort it will take.
Do it today and start REALLY communicating
with your customers.