BlogWorldExpo: The Benefits of Small Business Blogs

Liveblogging Scott Allen of the Virtual Handshake, listening to him discuss how Small Business blogs help support your small business.

1) Don't have ads. (we teach this too - ads make it look like your primary business can't make money).

2) Reasons to use blogs
a) search engine visibility
b) educate customers
c) Branding (personal and business)

3) Lead Generation
Not that great, but lead conversion is very, very high. Some people do get leads, but we find that there's often more people that trust you after reading your blog. Scott says this is all about trust.

4) Search Engines: The fastest way to get to the top 10 (page one) of Google is to start a blog. here's an example. Go search "labor relations consulting". The first entry is one of my clients, and they rank first in their industry.

Update:
Do's and Don'ts

Do's:
1)Commit to regular posting. It's better to delete the blog if you stop posting. A dead blog is worse than no blog at all.
2) Be Authentic
3) Spend at least 50% of your time off-blog.
4) Encourage Conversation (this is harder to do then it seems)

Don't
1) Don't beat yourself for not posting. If you miss a few days, it's okay. As long as you come back to it regularly.
2) Be afraid to Market. It's okay if you're a business blogger
3) Fall for the Field of Dreams syndrome (just because you build it, doesn't mean your marketing it done. Creating a blog does not mean that by magic, you'll get traffic.
4) Don't let people be abusive

Scott is talking about how much time you spend a week. He maintains that 5 hours a week spend blogging is a better use of your marketing time than other pieces. And that's just the direct metrics. Another guy points out that blogging also makes you smarter, as it gives you more information.

Scott could have read our training documents, because he's saying the same thing that we teach in our Blogger Boot Camp. Best speaker so far in terms of content.

on Ghost Bloggers: it's okay to hire bloggers that speak in the company name, and it's okay to have someone edit your writing, and it's okay to have someone write posts for you, and then you edit it. As long as you are involved in the process, it's okay. Scott doesn't agree that there is some weird kind of taint because someone edits for grammar.