Why Blogging is Essential to Your Business

In the 'good old days' - about three to four years ago,
you would be keepin-touch with your customers using
phone calls, email messages and face to face
meetings. But the world has changed. Nowadays,
people expect even more frequent updates, yet it's
nearly impossible to meet with every business contact
on a regular basis.

Thankfully, blogging has come to the rescue. Setting
up a blog on your web site - and having an associated
RSS feed - means you can keep in constant touch with
your clients and potential customers. Plus you don't
have to email them and they can get your latest
news without having to visit your web site.

So how does this all work? A blog is really a fancy
name for a web page that gets updated regularly. It's
nothing special. There are several methods of writing
'blogs', but they are nothing more than computer
programs which allow you to easily update a web
page. Far and away the easiest way to start a blog is
with a website called wordpress.com.

However, for keeping in touch with your customers,
RSS is the key. RSS stands for Really Simple
Syndication. What this means is that your blog can
be automatically delivered to people who want
to read it - you don't have to send it to them and
neither do they have to come and collect it. All they
need is the address of your RSS Feed and their RSS
Newsreader can do the job for them. There are several
RSS readers available and new web browsers
incorporate the ability to read RSS feeds and keep
them updated.

Whenever you add new content to your blog, the RSS
Feed automatically gets updated in everyone's Reader
program or web browser. That means you are
guaranteed to be able to keep in touch with clients and
prospects. You don't have to do anything other than
produce the content. Equally, you don't face the
problems of email filters and anti-spam programs
blocking your email. Furthermore, people tend to read
RSS Feeds because they have subscribed to them
whereas they tend to ignore non urgent emails.

As you can see, there are several advantages to Blogs
and RSS Feeds. But it doesn't stop there. Search
engines love them. That's because blogs provide
fresh and new content - precisely what searchers are
looking for. Hence the search engines are actively
pushing blogs higher up the search engine ranking.
This means if you don't have a blog for your business,
you are seriously reducing your chances of a high
search engine ranking. You need a blog nowadays to
get noticed by the search engines.

So, blogging is essential. Not only does it improve your
web presence, it also means you can keep in touch
with clients and prospects more easily. And all the
marketing research you can find will tell you that
keeping in regular touch with your customers is an
important component in gaining new business. So
start blogging!