There's been a lot of talk about whether business blogging is on its way out, how business blogging is trending, and whether or not business blogging is something that small businesses should be doing. The practice has certainly come a long way from the journaling of teenage drama. But, where will it go from here?
Well, it's certainly not going away. In 2011, it was predicted that 43% of businesses will be blogging by 2012. Now that it is 2012, let the record show that 62% of companies are blogging. The practice growing much faster than previously expected while showing remarkable success as a marketing tactic. Not only are a majority of businesses blogging, but a majority of those that are blogging (57%) have gained a new customer and/or revenue from their blog. That level of growth and success means that at the very least, those businesses that are blogging will continue blogging. Most likely what will happen is that more companies will engage in business blogging.
Will there be any changes to the way businesses blog? I think with the most recent changes in the Google algorithm, more businesses will focus on producing quality content and writing articles that are meant to educate and to inform their customer base. With the recent changes, it no longer works to write for the search engines or to use article spinning and article rewriters to produce tons of content for the sake of search engine rankings and getting found. Business blogging will have to emphasize the reader/customer in order to be rewarded. Business blogging will also have to be done well, and do more than meet a few criteria in order to appear on the first page of search engine rankings.
The Sales Lion, Marcus Sheridan, puts it best when he wrote on his website:
I recently had a nice gentleman call me from Minnesota who was just beginning to catch the vision of what Web 2.0 is all about. One of the questions he asked me was about blogging and if I was still doing it after having established my company’s website as the industry leader (through blogging). Honestly, I had to snicker a little bit at the question because blogging, i.e. content marketing, is not a quick fix. It’s not something to ever check off of your ‘to-do’ list. Frankly, blogging should be to a business what breathing is to man—done, almost without thought, because of one’s need for survival.
This is the great misunderstanding that so many businesses have. Content Marketing is not static. Search engines, as well as consumers, simply appreciate web sites that are constantly evolving and being added upon. This way they’ll keep coming back and also the scope and influence of the site itself will just grow and grow, line upon line, with every new bit of valuable content that’s added.
The future of business blogging is that all businesses that want to succeed will need to be blogging and content marketing. Whether you are a swimming pool company, or a green home cleaning company, or an online security company, business blogging and content marketing need to be used in order get the word out there about your brand and what you offer.
If you already have a business blog, and just need a few ideas to get things rolling, then check out of list of 101 business blog ideas that you can use right now:
