The Biggest Reason Small Business Owners Should Be Blogging
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So what’s the biggest reason small business owners should be blogging?
It’s reach! Blogs can often reach a larger audience faster (and certainly cheaper) than your normal, static website can. So it’s gotta be reach, right?
Sure. But I don’t feel it’s the most important reason to blog.
So if it’s not reach it’s gotta be the advantages in search engines. Search engines (read: Google) love blogs because their content is oft changing and their posts are often highly keyword focused. So there’s benefit in the search engines and that’s why businesses should blog.
All true. Yet, that’s not it.
Okay, how about this…the opportunity to grow a community around your business through the comment box. Comments lead to conversation which lead to relationships. The relationships, in turn, lead to all sorts of business opportunities.
Absolutely, without a doubt that’s true. Yet my opinion is we’re still putting the cart before the horse.
I’ve worked with dozens of small and service-oriented business clients over the past couple of years. Few have had the key ingredient to having a successful, flourishing business. That doesn’t mean they’re not successful. It means they’re not fulfilled with their success. It means they want/need more.
That key ingredient to growing a successful business is positioning.
Some think of positioning as just branding, image or identity. But it’s more than that. Positioning is how you’re perceived by your target audience. In other words, can you clearly illustrate that you have the solution to your target audience’s problem. It’s how you communicate what you do.
But to clearly and successfully communicate what you do, you must have that clarity yourself. And that’s what blogging affords.
When you blog, you write often about your business, your knowledge, your capabilities, etc. And you do so in ways that encourage people to respond. So by blogging, and meeting people in the comment box, you have immediate feedback about how clearly people are understanding what you know.
With a blog, you can take this a step further. You can also display your expertise in solving problems your audience face - whether personal or professional. You can offer advice on dealing with circumstances and write specifically to their needs. Then you can watch the response. If it’s positive, you know that you’re communicating well about what you do. And if not, you know that you need a bit of work.
And needing work is fine. It’s what having a business is all about. You need to allow your business to never be finished - to always be changing.
So small businesses, especially, can use blogging to experiment with how they talk to their audience. With a blog, they can explore different avenues for communicating. But moreover, they can find clarity in their business.
So how are you using your blog to find clarity in yours?
Sparkplugging Founder Wendy Piersall is dang passionate about helping people start & grow a business while maintaining life balance (somehow).
Dawud Miracle has one focus: to help you get it. The it? How your website, and blog, can change the way you do business. You can find out more at 
Teresa Morrow manages online book publicity and event promotion for authors, speakers and writers with her company 
All I can say is, I wouldn’t be where I am today without my blog(s). I have two, my personal blog and a blog that is more niche. It lets people see both the “real” and “professional” me, and I think it makes me appear approachable yet capable (which I am in real life).
Business has been slow to take off, but it’s definitely going somewhere.
Lis Garrett’s last blog post..Elmer’s Squeeze ?N Brush ~ A Giveaway!
I was just having this conversation with a friend who owns a small business. We were talking about the possibility of a blog for her company’s website and what it could do for her. How timely! Now you can reinforce what I was trying to tell her.
Thanks again for great content!
Cory Huff’s last blog post..A Sick Husband
I totally agree with you. My business model is to build a community and then to serve it in all possible ways. My blog is a very important part of this as it allows me to easily share my knowledge and it opens dialogues which allows me to learn more about my community and for my community to have their specific questions answered.
Katherine Reschke’s last blog post..Outsourcing
All these reasons are good reasons to be blogging. It depends on what your business is and whether it is a startup or mature. For me at the moment search results from keywords are vital. Building my brand is also a big part of being recognized as my business plan is 100% online at this stage. The training effect of having to produce good content every day is also good. If I would add another point it would be research, market research that a blog can achieve almost better than any other medium when used the right way.
Cookiemouse’s last blog post..Vegan Amsterdam restaurant “de Peper”
Excellent Dawud. I am meeting with a small business owner today and these are definitely the things she needs to hear!
Kristen’s last blog post..Social Media Mom Scores 92 Out Of 100 On SEO Website Grader
This is brilliant Dawud - one to cut out and keep for all our non-blogging business friends!
For me the biggest single difference has been about getting clear about what it is that I do, what I’m really good at. As you say:
“But to clearly and successfully communicate what you do, you must have that clarity yourself. And that’s what blogging affords.”
Thanks for putting the gut feeling into words
Joanna
Joanna Young’s last blog post..A Pancake Maker’s Guide To Writing Well
Great post and very true. I love it when someone ask me why should I be blogging. I usually answer the question with another question. Why aren’t you blogging? Every small business, home business and even large business should be blogging. Engaging your clients and/or customers in a conversation about your product or service will get you noticed and get you business.
One thing to consider - whether a business is in startup or mature…you can always micro-adjust your position to increase revenue. And one way to get clearer and clearer about your positioning is by writing about your business every day on your blog.
I know well what I do - and have for more than a decade. Yet my business continues to evolve as I write on my blog. It’s a never-ending process.
I always say that business is always a work-in-process.
I couldn’t agree more. I started my blog with a plan. I enjoy the blogging, but I also want to find a new way to make money and close my daycare. My children are getting older and I need to be involved in their schooling, especially my youngest who has Down syndrome. I enjoy sewing, but selling on eBay is difficult. I want to start selling items on Etsy. I am working on building an inventory so that when I am ready to launch my business, I will have a blogging following of people who know me and I can direct them to my product. My goal is to open a store the end of April-beginning of May so I will have a couple weeks under my belt before I close the day care for the summer (and hopefully forever.) Since I started my blog, I have started to pursue a freelance writing career as well. I’m hoping that both businesses will eventually become successful and I will not need to find a job outside the home.
Deb’s last blog post..Diva’s New Do
Those are good reasons. What the difference being a small business owner and blogging and a large business owner and blogging? There’s no reason not to blog and keep your [future] customers updated.
You nailed it on the head Dawud - it’s about building a brand and your blog is another powerful medium for extending and establishing that brand.
We are in the cake industry and a blog is a great medium for showcasing our work and keeping the audience engaged.
Thanks for the great article!
Anne’s last blog post..Pool Billiard Cupcakes
You touch on interactive communication with customers, which I personally think is the biggest advantage of blogs for small business.
Direct communications with customers to determine their thoughts, motivations, satisfaction levels & future needs is invaluable for small businesses without a market research budget.
Great post Dawud!
However, small business owners should be cautioned that it takes a while to build a presence on the Web. I didn’t really begin to see an increase in business until I had been blogging for six months.
Laura’s last blog post..Business and Blogging Bookshelf: Blog Wild! A Guide for Small Business Blogging
Blogging has become very popular as a way to make money online.Unfortunately people tend to quit when they don´t see results instantly, as it will take some time to build traffic.With traffic and relevant links to your blog comes the results and money.
Tom Lindstrom’s last blog post..Social Site Review: MyBlogLog
I think it’s important to note that it does take some time - and effort - to build a presence in the blogosphere. Yet, that shouldn’t deter someone from beginning. Just the writing process alone can be a huge help in finding clarity in your business and understanding how an audience wants to be spoken too.
I like this, the idea of pre-emptively solving problems to demonstrate capabilities to clients. What’s nice is if you can create a good feedback loop whereby prospects not only read about fictitious (or other’s people’s) scenarios, but also can communicate their own to be addressed publicly. Not unlike the “blog bars” concept discussed in the Clicksharp blog back in December…
Paul Burani’s last blog post..The digital annuity: our next great marketing asset
Small business blogging is good to keep customers up to date on the latest company news. It’s cheap and customers can subscribe to recieve the rss feed by email so less chance of an email ending up in a spam folder.
Helps to get the company more indexed pages in the search engines. So their web prescence increases.
Thanks for the great post. Sometimes it really helps for someone to explain all the reasons for doing the things we know we should be doing!