Online presence is not only about having a business website

At Visual Link, we have just decided to launch our blog and we believe this choice and our experience can be interesting for businesses wondering if they should get a business blog, or not.

We highly believe Internet has much more opportunities for businesses than having just a website. When looking at the benefits of blogging, it is obvious that this tool would be useful for most of the businesses. A blog is part of an Inbound Marketing strategy: by providing great content, you can  generate leads from your website. We listed what pushed us to open our blog:

• Connect to your customers and prospects and give them value

A blog is complimentary with a business website and it allows a better interaction with customers and prospects. If you provide content that interest them, they may react: you will  get the opportunity to answer them and connect with them. You can learn from them, they can learn from you, it is a two-way exchange and an interesting relationship to build.

It can be used like real channel of communication to provide information about your business in a new format, through blog posts, where you can show your areas of expertise and your business values for instance. You can also teach your customers about your service so they better understand your offer.

We believe that giving useful information to our customers and prospects and answer some of their questions will help us to build trust with them. If we help our customers to identify opportunities to grow their business, at the end it is an opportunity for us to get more business… and we really love win-win situations!

• Drive traffic

As you provide frequent updates on your blog, you have more chances to get more traffic than with a static informational website. A blog is really technically easy to update, you can even post just by sending an email if you allowed this configuration! Moreover blog posts are also easy to share on social networks so this is an opportunity to drive word of mouth.

• Improve your SEO

Search engines like fresh content, so they like blogs with frequent updates. If you configured it well, search engines will be invited to your blog every time you post new content. The content you provide will also help you to be referenced on more keywords. All this will also benefit your website, if you linked your blog strategically to it.

But to be honest, the real question before deciding to launch a blog is not only to figure out if you need it… but is actually to make sure you are ready for it!

Are you ready for a business blog?

To get the most of your blog, you have to update it regularly and offer content that will please your visitors. A good business blog requires time, and someone has to look after it frequently. It is not only about posting content: you will have to promote your content and to monitor your readers’ reactions.

If you are not ready to invest time and human resource into blogging and connecting with your visitors, don’t start blogging. Having a blog is useful only if you have the resources to update it. It can even harm your image if blogging is not done properly.

At Visual Link, we have been thinking about blogging for a while but we decided to wait for the team to grow to get the time and resource for it. Going into blogging has to be taken as a real strategy and not just as a test, as the objective is to engage with your audience and build a relationship through it.

If you like the idea of having a blog but you think you are too busy for it, you are not sure about what to write, you are worried about having visitors or you don’t know how to start, we can help!

If you have a budget for it but a lack of time or experience, you can decide to work with an external company to help you blogging. There are different steps where you can get help like the set up, the content strategy, the content itself or the promotion for instance.