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The Value of Small Business Blogging: 3 Key Questions & Answers

Lee Odden
Lee Odden
Blogging Strategy, Online Marketing

small business bloggingEarlier this week Frank J. Kenny did a Skype interview with me about small business blogging and why or why not it makes sense. Frank’s audience is the network of Chambers of Commerce across the U.S..  I think it’s a timely question considering the ongoing “blogging is dead“, “no it’s not” debate that’s been going on for the past 5 years or so.

As a small business owner myself, I’ve been blogging here at Online Marketing Blog for over 8 years and can testify as to the pros and cons like few others can. In our case, we’ve had great success with our blog as a way to achieve industry awareness and credibility, attract new business, employees, media coverage, speaking opportunities and many other benefits.

In the interview with Frank, he asked 3 key questions about blogging and social media that I wanted to share here since it’s had such a huge impact for both our clients large and small, as well as on our own small business.

Why should small businesses blog?

Blogging is a method of creating and publishing conversational content. Blogs are an easy to use content management system. The value is in the content and ability for companies to leverage the inherent promotion and engagement capabilities of the blog publishing platform. Blogging offers a few key advantages:

  1. Easy to use platform to create sharable, linkable content that addresses specific prospect and customer interests
  2. Serves as a hub to a hub and spoke model of content marketing and promotion
  3. Creates a promotable SEO and Social Media asset – every post is a potential destination for a link and an entry point through search engines.

Through multiple channels of discovery, blog content can reach:

  • Prospects
  • Existing customers
  • Potential employees
  • Marketing partners, investors
  • The media: journalists, bloggers

What is the impact of Google+ on search and how does it affect business blog marketing?

Google+ personalization and it’s impact on search is the hot topic and any company that wants an advantage in Google search results needs to consider Google+ and other social media participation. The behaviors of content creation, sharing and engagement are incredibly rich signals that search engines can use to improve search results quality and search user experience.

The more people that have included your Google+ profile or page in their circles, the more likely content that you’ve created, shared and engaged with will appear in their Google search results while they’re logged in. Google+ optimization should be an essential part of any business blog effort.

At the same time, social media content, whether it’s text, images or video is content that can be crawled and ranked in search results. Social media optimization can improve search visibility of that social content for people that are actively looking for solutions.

When we make optimization recommendations, we go beyond search keywords and have our clients consider social topics as well. Understanding what keywords consumers are searching on as well as the topics they’re discussing on blogs, twitter, and other social networks can inform an editorial plan that does a much better job of attracting new customers because it’s focused on their language and the things they care about. Incidentally, I go deep, deep into this within Optimize.

How much emphasis should small business bloggers place on SEO vs social media?

The consumer journey through the sales funnel is increasingly weaving through a social and search experience. Our model of optimization focuses on how consumers Discover, Consume and Share content so the notion that people will come across a small business solution because of a social connection to a friend that then leads to a search on Google or Bing to get more information is entirely likely and common.

When people use specific words in a search they are segmenting or qualifying themselves to a certain degree because the words they use indicate intent to a particular purpose or outcome. Creating, optimizing and socializing blog content according to those purposes or pain points can be very powerful for any sized business that wants to be found or talked about where relevant customers are looking.

There’s so much more I can say about this (and I will – see my upcoming speaking schedule)

Here’s the video version of the interview:

Despite the success we’ve had with our own business blogging efforts at TopRank Online Marketing, we’re probably only realizing a fraction of the potential benefits from business blogging. If that’s the case, why do so many other companies with significantly greater resources fail at blogging for their business? They quit, lack vision, underestimate resources and timeframe, and fail to understand where blogging can be integrated with achieving multiple business goals.

Hopefully you’ll find the advice above useful to help your business blogging effort. If you have specific biz blogging questions, please ask them in the comments.

About Lee Odden

@LeeOdden is the CEO of TopRank Marketing and editor of TopRank's B2B Marketing Blog. Cited for his expertise by The Economist, Forbes and the Wall Street Journal, he's the author of the book Optimize and presents internationally on B2B marketing topics including content, search, social media and influencer marketing. When not at conferences, consulting, or working with his talented team, he's likely running, traveling or cooking up something new.

Comments

  1. Williamgmullen says

    March 15, 2012 at 12:48 pm

    Great blog!  Enjoyed reading about the value of blogging for small businesses

  2. Network Management says

    March 15, 2012 at 3:05 pm

    I think besides giving never ending ideas to your readers, your blog has touched a lot of lives by means of everyday interaction with your readers.  Your site is actually a favorite of mine because of the topic/s being discussed, plus the interesting fact that everything you do revolves in helping business improve their knowledge regarding seo and stuff.   Kudos to toprankblog!

  3. Marie Wiere says

    March 15, 2012 at 10:59 pm

    Lee,

    I am happy to have found your blog, such great content. I think this post could be extremely helpful for small businesses evaluating their social media strategy.

    • leeodden says

      March 16, 2012 at 2:41 pm

      Thank you Marie – glad you found it useful. 

  4. Sapnasingh1222 says

    March 16, 2012 at 4:30 am

    This is very informative n nice blog written in a very easy language.

  5. Cox Adriana says

    March 16, 2012 at 5:51 am

    An impressive blog! Must say the information inculcated is
    very useful thanks a lot for the informative blog! 

  6. Lynn Brown says

    March 17, 2012 at 5:02 pm

    Glad you are sharing your interview Lee.  You have provided a tremendous, easy to understand logic for blogging and small business.  Content is important to our consumers if it provides the answers, benefits and features they are looking for.  I see it as ‘common sense’ marketing.  After all, as online business owners or entrepreneurs, we are consumers too.  I know what I would be searching for and getting feedback from my audience and clients is yet another way to find out how others see today’s social experience.  I’m looking forward to sharing your insight on this topic with my community. 

  7. Frank J. Kenny says

    March 18, 2012 at 4:13 pm

    Lee,

    I just want to thank you again for allowing me to interview you. 

    Frank

  8. Membrane Keypads says

    March 22, 2012 at 8:33 am

    Very Genuine round of question and answer..Well Kenny your question regarding
    small businesses blogging was superb and ofcourse Lee you have explained it very well even we all here on this blog are very clear about this concept..Thanks Guys!
     

  9. Jason Morgan says

    March 25, 2012 at 12:35 am

     

    I have to say this post was certainly informative and
    contains useful content for enthusiastic visitors. I will definitely bookmark
    this blog for future reference and further viewing. Thanks a bunch for sharing
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  10. Ram Babu SEO says

    March 26, 2012 at 9:53 am

    it must have been great time with frank and discussed about blogging and social media. No way, blog is not going to die , rather it earns huge value in the web market and people either love this platform to join daily in a large number of users and bring something new and show!

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