Creating a blog can be a very powerful tool to help your company with SEO, increasing traffic to the website and establishing your company as an expert in your industry. In fact an article by Mashable stated small business websites with a blog receive 55% more traffic than the ones without a blog. Using the marketing industry as example, companies like 6S marketing use a blog to position themselves as experts in the industry and they do a very good job at it. Of course in addition they are driving traffic to their website, they are helping their SEO ranking, they are building their brand, setting themselves apart from their competition and building a community. Although there are many reasons to start a blog, blogging is not free. It is important to evaluate whether you have the proper resources to maintain a regular blog. Is there someone in your company who is qualified to write? Does that team member have enough time to write a blog three times a week? Should you hire a consultant to help with the writing? These are the things to discuss and carefully consider before starting a blog.

Most importantly if you are going to create a blog you need readers! Here is our top 10 ways to make your blog ROCK!

1. “Create valuable content and good writing and the readers will come.” – Four Pillars of Writing Exceptional Blogs
2. Write about what you know. Don’t try to fake it.
3. Keep your blog short and sweet. Long blogs can be overwhelming for your reader and may dissuade them from reading.
4. Ask questions to engage your readers.
5. Respond to comments thoughtfully and quickly.
6. Make commenting easy, don’t install a CAPTCHA box. Everyone hates those things and it’s easy enough to install a spam filter plugin. (I personally like Akismet)
7. Approve negative and positive comments. Negative comments are just as important as positive comments. Many great conversations are started from differences of opinions.
8. Blog regularly. In an ideal world you would blog everyday but that can be unrealistic for some companies so blog at least 3 times a week in order to keep your readers coming back.
9. Comment on other peoples blogs. This is a great way to engage other bloggers and get them to check out your blog.
10. Have a personality. Make sure your blogs tone reflects your company’s personality. No one wants to read a blog that sounds like a press release so have fun with it.

What is your favorite blog? What makes it so enjoyable to read?