Recently I came across a post on a social marketing site: “I’m hearing great things about blogging. But is it really worth the time?”
As usual, the answer is, “It depends.”
Your website can be a blog.
You can have a website plus a blog.
You can have a website with no blog.
If you look around, you’ll find business owners reaching success with each of these strategies.
A useful guideline is to take a step back and ask, “What do I need to do to market my services?”
Maybe you don’t need a blog. In fact, if you’ve got a blog that’s not delivering results, maybe your audience just doesn’t do blogs…they might prefer podcasts, videos, or webinars.
There’s really no single “must have” strategy. The closest thing to an essential is list-building. But I recently met someone who’s promoting a company that sells a novelty fashion item. It’s rare for people to buy more than once or even to recommend others to buy. They row by increasing traffic and capturing sales from impulse buyers. A blog would just get in the way.
If you decide to start a blog begin with a goal.
For instance, “I want people to recognize me as an authority in my field.”
If you want to become an authority with blogging, you’ll find these steps helpful (I’ve included links to my online courses):
… fill your posts with content that’s truly unique (or at least not easily found elsewhere)
… promote your posts via social media and also high-credibility settings, such as private forums
… engage your audience with storytelling by telling the right kind of stories
… apply the key principles of content credibility to every blog post
… make a commitment to blog (it’s hard to be credible if you blog less than monthly)
Sometimes your best strategy is not to start a new business with a blog.
Instead, do guest posting and create a presence on the Internet first. Instead of a full site, just have a landing page and lead magnet. After you build your list, you create your blog.