1) The document discusses 10 business reasons for starting a blog, including using it to tell your brand's story, develop thought leadership, attract new clients, improve search engine optimization, connect with audiences, gauge interest in new ideas, position yourself as an expert, create long-lasting marketing assets, develop ideas and articulate them clearly, and create a foundation for future products. 2) Specifically, blogging allows businesses to share their origins and values, stand out from competitors by expressing unique perspectives, educate potential clients on what services can do through case studies and examples, boost website usability metrics that impact search rankings, facilitate two-way conversations with readers, test interest in new concepts through in-depth posts, establish expertise by

1. 10 Business Reasons to
Start Blogging
Dr. Rachna Jain

2. Blogging, done well, is a powerful method for building your online business. I like
of my blog posts (590 at last count) each acting like a tireless ambassador for my
business- they work for me 24/7/365- without fail. Of course, not every blog post is
a runaway success, and there are some posts that apparently only I thought were a
good idea – but, for the most part, I find that the more I blog, the more
opportunities I create.
So why blog?

3. 1) To tell the story of your
brand
Blogging is a wonderful way to share about your company- how you got started,
what you stand for, what you do, and what you hope for next. You can make an
emotional connection with your audience through what you share on your blog.

4. 2) To develop and express your
though leadership
There are likely many other entrepreneurs offering services like yours and
promising results like yours. Blogging can help you stand out from the crowd, and
can be a way for you to build distinctiveness – and thought leader status- within
your chosen audience.

5. 3) To attract new clients
People want to know what you can do- and blogging about your business case
studies, client successes, and the results of what you do can help you attract new
clients. Equally important is the educational aspects of your marketing- a blog is a
great vehicle to teach your future clients why they need to work with you.

6. 4) To improve your search
engine optimization
As an SEO expert, this one is near and dear to my heart. <3 Blogging is one of the best ways
to improve your business search engine optimization, as it gives you a deeper foundation of
keywords and concepts that will enable you to attract more visitors. Blogging also helps you
improve usability of your website- increasing important metrics like time on site, number of
pageviews, and reduction of bounce rate. These usability factors are becoming increasingly
important in gaining high search engine rankings.

7. 5) To connect with and engage
your audience
Ideally, blogs offer a two way vehicle for communicating with your audience.
Though not all blogs receive a lot of comments (mine doesn’t, proportional to how
many people read it), there is, at least, always the possibility of creating a
conversation about your latest blog post. And you never know what impact you have
had on someone who visits your blog, even if they never let you know.

8. 6) To gauge interest in new
ideas or new trends
If you have a business idea or a new business paradigm, you can use your blog to
start sharing your ideas and gauging interest in them. Whole books have been
created from blog posts written in this way. You simply start talking about a topic,
developing it more and more deeply, and build a readership around this topic. Done
well, you have a large audience to read the book you publish from your collected
blog posts.

9. 7) To position yourself as an
expert
Blogging enables you to directly share your expertise, of course, and that’s the
obvious expert positioning. And I think there is a second, more subtle one at work
too. The secondary expert positioning is that you are so knowledgeable that you can
share your information, for free, regularly, and you don’t fear running out of things to
say. So it’s not just what you say, but also that you share it freely. Both work together
to position you as an expert.

10. 8) To create long-lasting
marketing assets
I referenced this at the beginning of this post, but blogging is one of the best ways to create
long-term marketing assets for your business. Even though email marketing is important, the
fact is that most people delete their emails after a period of time. The time-span of email
newsletters is therefore limited. Yet a blog post can remain online for years, and if the topic is
evergreen, could continually accrue more and more visitors, especially if you have a way of
regularly sharing your evergreen content again and again.

11. 9) To develop your ideas and
capacity to articulate them
Writing is inherently a creative process. If you write blog posts regularly, you will
find that you naturally become better at developing your ideas and explaining them.
Working with words enables us to be more active and fluid with connecting ideas
together. We create an opening for greater creativity. This can only help when we are
trying to develop our ideas for, perhaps, a business vision or marketing strategy.

12. 10) To create a foundation for
future products
I’ve recently taken up silversmithing and what I find, as I visit different metal-smithing blogs on
the internet is that one metal artist tries a new technique, shares it on his or her blog, and then
their readers want something more- samples, an instructional video, or step-by-step instructions.
For not too much effort, a person who has created a technique or strategy like this could
package their information and offer it for sale. They could, if they wanted, even take a step
further and offer instructions and a starter kit. The same applies to other businesses too. If I
share of a new strategy that I’ve implemented with success, there is a high chance that someone
will step forward to ask for more information or clarification. This can help you take the “pulse”
of your market and help you innovate new products and services.