This is the second part of the 5-part series on Planning Your Website Structure
“I’m a business owner, not a blogger. Do I really need a blog on my website?”
Why have a blog on a small business website?
It has to do with building authority in your industry. Over time, you and your business will gain a reputation for your opinion. This may or may not be true of every industry but if it is a prevalent norm in your industry, you should seriously consider having a blog.
Having a blog increases the website build costs, but not by much. Web software like WordPress (the most popular one for building small business sites) started life as a blogging platform, so you’re in a good place.
A blog is good for SEO
If your blog posts are well written and informative using popular keywords (words and phrases that people in your industry are searching in Google), you will eventually receive a lot of traffic to your website.
Eventually, not immediately. Google takes time to rank your article. Google loves well written articles on popular search phrases and will reward you with traffic. Writing with search engines in mind is called search engine optimization or SEO.
With more people landing on your site, you have a better chance at selling them your services or products. Remember, though, that SEO is a long-term game. It will take a year or more of regular posting to see results. Since the next year will come along any way, it’s better to start the blog as soon as you can (if you see it brings value for your industry or niche.)
Who will write the blog posts?
Your web builder will provide the blog functionality for a cost. But writing the actual posts is not included in that cost. Some web builders do offer blog writing as an additional service. There are professional writers available on freelance sites like Upwork and Fiverr. About $75-$100 is a common rate for a single post.
Sometimes, your best bet can be a spouse or colleague with good writing skills. A college student down the road who will do it for not much can be handy. A blog requires long-term commitment to a consistent strategy to gain traffic. Because of this, it may not be suitable for every business website.
COMING UP: How many images do you need for your site? (A handful is fine but more is better!)