Business blogging is regarded as the domain of experts, experts willing to spend lots of time each day telling the world about an industry or a sector.  We’ll call this “hard blogging”.  The benefits of hard blogging are many, but the time commitment of hard blogging is usually a huge deterrent so most SMBs balk at it because they feel that a) they don’t have the time to think up analysis or insight that anyone would read, and b) there’s nothing to blog about my business that my customers would be interested in reading (e.g. after I buy a granite countertop for my kitchen, I’m probably not interested in following the granite countertop industry).

An alternate form of blogging that brings its own basket of benefits is what I’ll call “soft blogging”; not blogging analysis but rather easier, once a week, announcement-like content.  Here are five examples:

1. Customer testimonials; getting testimonials from happy customers is an obvious best practice, and when you do, a blog is ideal for maximizing the return on that testimonial.  Include a small description of the service or product rendered to get the testimonial.
2. Portfolio of projects; this is for companies with fewer clients but bigger projects – this is a case study in effect.  Nothing works like a list of real projects you’ve completed, far more so than all the “motherhood” statements on your website.
3. News and Press releases; all companies should put out press releases, submitted to an online wire service like PR web, once a quarter. They are like little golden microsites devoted to your company that delivers visitors for years.  Examples of what to put in them include a new management hire, a major client landed or project completed, a new service you now offer, or a new product line you’ve begun carrying.  Publish to your blog as well.
4. Job postings; hiring people says your company is growing and the job description is a wonderful grab bag of what your company does well.  Blogging a job posting is one of the only ways a small business can attract attention to a job posting on its own without relying on a 3rd party website.  Once you hire someone, change the post to a hiring announcement and re-publish.
5. Marketing and Sales collateral; you have brochures, and you have digital versions of them. Do a paragraph summary of what they contain and post them online.  Instead of emailing a PDF to a prospect, your sales person can now email them a link to where it resides on your web page, and if they do come to investigate it, they may partake more of your messaging on your website/blog.

A key element of this strategy is that the blog must be part of your main website (or a subdomain) so that the search engines will then see it as part of your website.   This approach is search engine ‘gold’.  You are adding new content to your website on an ongoing basis (I’d suggest once a week) and you are educating search engines (i.e. Google) about what you do.

In some ways for many companies “soft blogging” is more beneficial than “hard blogging”. Testimonials and /or a portfolio of projects is often a more powerful aid in getting new business than stating your opinion on topics many of your prospects will likely not have the time or inclination to read.  Getting new business is the acid test after all; will this activity bring you more business?  The answer is yes.  This approach will bring more visitors to your website, and you will convince more of them you are a real company that has happy customers.  More visitors will identify themselves and ask questions and request quotes.  Go “soft blogging”!