If you are already maintaining a web site, having a blog can add to, or enhance, your existing web presence. The ability to provide your customers, and readers, with fresh content on a daily, or weekly basis can keep your business running even during lean months.
Blogging is also a great way for small business owners, with little web design knowledge, and small budgets to establish a professional, attractive, web presence. Many designers charge much less for a completely customized blog design and installation than they would charge for complete, traditional, html or flash website design.
When blogging first began becoming popular among businesses I was slow to notice the change. It seemed to me as though more and more of my competitors were shutting down their traditional websites and replacing them with well designed blogs. Other competitors kept their existing websites up, but added links to their websites that sent surfers to there companies newly created blogs. I decided to start learning more about blogging, but I didn’t want to change my entire website format until I was sure blogging was right for me and my business.
I played around with a few different blogging platforms on a personal level trying to find out what all the fuss was about. I set up a small personal blog on Blogger and later a weight loss blog on Typepad. After trying out all of the major blogging platforms I realized that using a blog platform to power my site rather than the current html design could do wonders for my business. In addition to being able to make my blogs look, and feel, professional with little design knowledge, I was also able to easily add photo and text content to these personal blogs with no assistance. This was something I would never have been able to manage on my traditional site.
While any of these discovers would have inspired me to turn my existing site into a blog, the deciding factor for me was a confrontation with my website designer. I needed my site updated to promote an upcoming concert my business was affiliated with but the designer would not be available to complete the update until after the concert was over. I immediately began researching how to create my own blog on my own domain so that I would no longer be dependent on a web designer.
