Reach out to customers by blogging

If you have a company Web site, consider starting a blog.
Every time you introduce a new product or service, offer a discount, open a new business location, or achieve any success, post to the blog and tell your customers and the world. All of the things you see large corporations do, you can do now, without the aid of a professional Web support team.

Blogs can also be a great way of letting folks in on less positive news--service outages, product defects, and other issues--and telling them what you're doing about it or how they can get the problem fixed.

Build a site from scratch with a blogging tool.
Blog software doesn't replace the need for a good Web designer, but it does mean you'll no longer need one once the site is up and running. "Unless I want to change my design, I never have to talk to the designer again," said Alexander Muse, the chairman of Architel, a 47-person IT support company based in Dallas, Texas.

Architel's entire site is a combination of three free WordPress blogs: one for news updates, one for CEO Scott Ryan, and one main blog to structure all of the pages. To make changes to the site, Muse or other employees type into preset fields; no Web coding or knowledge of HTML is required.

Muse said that traditional business Web sites, such as more graphic-intensive ones based on Macromedia applications, don't turn up well in search engines. Because Architel built its Web site using blogs, it's much easier to raise the company's search rankings because of all the page-linking that's inherent in a blog-based solution. "If you're interested in people finding out what you're doing, go with a blogging solution instead," he said.

Blogging tools also let you include ads on your site, and they give an easy place for other sites to link to. You can also easily establish syndicated RSS feeds to spread the word far and wide about your products and services to reach anyone who's interested.

Make money with your blog.
Rick Blythe is the author of six blogs, including Camera News, a digital camera review and comparison site. "It was not until I learned about Google's AdSense program that I considered doing this to make any money," said Blythe. "The traffic [on my first blog] at first was minimal, and I earned only a few cents per day. It was more of an experiment than a real plan. When it grew to the point it was paying for my weekly gas consumption to and from my real job, I started to learn how to improve my site, what search engine optimization was, and I was hooked."

As he started to grow his new business, he expanded into other blogs and now has expanded into Amazon affiliate sales and other advertising sources. "I've been approached many times now for ad placement on my blogs," said Blythe.

Post important company information to the blog's home page.
When you put up a new blog post, it goes at the top of the page. Whatever content was there previously gets pushed down, and eventually it's pushed off the main page into archives. As a result, previous information can become more difficult to find.

"Instead, I can turn a post into a featured news item just by clicking one button," said Andrew Jackson, the director of communication at Glaucoma Research Center, a seven-person nonprofit organization dedicated to finding a cure for glaucoma. He publishes the organization's entire Web site using Movable Type ($199 and up for commercial use). "I just tell the post which section to go in and whether or not I want it to appear on the home page," said Jackson.

In each post you can link information to other blog posts, other static parts of the Web site, or external pages. This way, people reading your post can find out more information without having to look for it themselves.

Don't overlook free tools.
If you have some technical knowledge, a free blogging tool, such as Blogger or WordPress, can give you all the power you need. If you'd prefer to have more robust tools for posting images, creating site templates, accessing premade graphics, and more, then go with a paid tool, such as Blogger Pro or Movable Type.

Cut down on unnecessary customer support calls.
Architel takes important news posts from its company blog and displays them simultaneously in the customer support section of its Web site. This way, when clients log in to get help, they can find out about important technical issues, product announcements, shipment delays, and more.

"Every time there's a new worm out, we get a million calls from clients saying 'the FBI is tracking me.' I sit near the help desk, and all day I hear the technicians saying 'No, it's nothing you did. The FBI is not after you.' Now one person can write and post the story. Every time that happens, we create Web content within moments of the need and push that to the clients. As a result, customer support calls go down significantly. It's a really quick and easy way to communicate with our clients," Muse said.

Blog on a regular basis.
Posting to your company blog helps you stay focused. More specifically, it keeps you thinking about the ways you can grow your business. It also helps you keep an eye on the industry, watch out for new trends, and maintain an open dialog with your customers.

"I would absolutely recommend that all businesses consider blogging. It is a win-win scenario," Blythe said. "On one hand, you begin to communicate with your customers, something that most corporate Web sites do terribly. Real human communication without all the marketingspeak. On the other hand, search engines, such as Google, love fresh new content, especially if it relates to your market niche. Google rewards such blogs with very high rankings," he said.

You should also keep an eye on the comments others post if you turn on this function. This way, you can learn from what people are saying, and their feedback can help you improve your business. Also, you might catch spam that automatic spam catchers have missed, and if you pay attention to what's being written, you can also protect yourself from legal issues raised by a comment, which you can then delete.

When not to blog.
Certain kinds of companies might not see much benefit from a blog, especially those with customers who prefer word-of-mouth referrals or don't use computers often. It may be better not to blog when you're simply too busy to update your blog on a regular basis. In these cases, a simple company Web site, with a list of products, directions, store hours, and maybe monthly or quarterly updates on how your business is growing, would suffice.

For e-commerce, blogging tools won't help much
If you're looking for an e-commerce solution with a shopping cart so that customers can purchase products from your Web site, blogging tools alone won't give you enough firepower. Look here for tips on how to set up an e-commerce solution.