If you read our blog, you will understand how important blogging is; especially for small businesses. It keeps you in touch with your customer base and allows you to demonstrate your expertise.

If you are setting up a blog, read our recent article about blog domain names before you start and either sign up to a free blogsite using one of the more popular blog sites such as wordpress.com or contact us if you want help integrating a blog into your business website.

It can be a bit overwhelming at first, especially if you are not used to writing; but remember that your blog is there to keep in touch with customers, promote new products, advise your customers, improve your internet marketing and generally show a more social side to your company.

It’s important always to keep the blog relevant to your business and to write regular updates. This will ensure that search engines such as Google pick up on the blog and improve your overall ranking on the internet. The higher ranked your website/blog is, the more people will come across it when running internet searches.

Once you start blogging, you will find that it provides fresh content for your website and keeps customers coming back.  You are providing a free service for them while at the same time enhancing your own business.

One of the questions we’re often asked by clients is where they should host their blog. Free blogging platforms such as WordPress and Blogger make it possible to set-up a blog within a few minutes. The content, by default, is hosted by the software provider and accessed via their domain name, e.g. www.wordpress.com/blogforjoebloggs.

However, we always advise our clients to host their blogs on their own specific domains. This could be a stand-alone blog  such as www.blogforjoebloggs.com, or a new section on an existing website such as www.joebloggswebsite.com/blog.

Even though there are costs associated with buying specific domain names and paying for hosting space, the benefits make it a very worthwhile investment. The free blog sites are great up until a point, in that they enable you to start generating some traffic, but did you know that you don’t actually own the blog? While you own the content, one step out of line and your account could be closed, taking all of your hard work with it.

As your blog and your company expand and become more popular, you will find the flexibility of your own domain name incredibly important. By having your own domain name for your blog, or bolting it on to your main website, you will gain more credibility with your readers as well as enjoying complete control over your content and adding value to your business.