I seem to have a flood of people all of a sudden asking us to install a blog on their website. Great! The first question I ask is "who is going to write your blog" and then the normal response is the typical deer-in-the-headlights look. This article will cover the pros and cons of creating your own blog. Future posts will address HOW to write blog content, but for now, let's just cover the WHY part.

What's a Blog? 

Well, Wikipedia says:

A blog (a contraction of the term weblog) is a type of website, usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video. Entries are commonly displayed in reverse-chronological order. "Blog" can also be used as a verb, meaning to maintain or add content to a blog.

A blog can be a lot of things to different people. For the purpose of this article, we're going define a blog as a collection of articles (like this one) written by you that appear on your website.

Why Do I Need a Blog?

My first question is, "why do you want a blog?" Here are some typical answers:

• "Because I've been told that it will help me with search engine placement."
• "My competitors have blogs."
• "My boss just told me to get one."

The one legitimate answer that comes to my mind never seems to be in the list. Above all other reasons, you should be creating a blog to provide an enhanced experience for your visitors. You'll notice from all of my articles and if you ever work with me directly, I'm not in it for search engines or for status. I have one goal and only one goal -- provide pure value to the end user! Once you do that, all other things will fall in to place - I promise!

So what does that mean? Well, once you build a blog, you have to DO SOMETHING with your blog. What do you DO with your blog - write content! My favorite saying in search marketing is "Content is King!" Same goes for your blog, don't just set it up, build it out and make it work for you.

Blog Considerations

Blogs come with many options. The good thing is that if you are one of my customers, you don't need to hassle with comparing blog features and all of that. This week, my favorite system is the one I'm using - BlogEngine.NET. DE Web Works will set your blog up for you and you can just worry about writing articles. You will get to decide (for each article) if you want people to comment on that article or if you just want it closed. The thought of people commenting on your articles might seem scary. If it is, then don't allow comments - simple as that. It's your blog and it's ok to do that.

In Conclusion

So, summing up, I do think that a blog can be a very valuable tool for your website - when done correctly. If you have something to say about your industry (things you would want to share with your customers) then you have something to blog about. For example, if I were a Real Estate agent, I might want to create articles with tips for "staging" homes (making them more marketable). If I were in the plumbing business, I might consider writing an article on how to check pipes for signs of leakage. As I said before, I'll be publishing articles on HOW to write blogs later on.

If you decide to build a blog, be sure you are ready to dedicate time to write useful articles for your customers. Don't worry about your competitors or search engines at this stage. We'll cross those bridges when we get to them! If you're setting up a blog just for the sake of having a blog, don't bother - you're only going to be creating problems for yourself and you'll end up wasting time and money.

Bottom line: if it is going to help your customers or provide a benefit for them - build a blog!