If you’re on the fence about blogging, here are 9 reasons why blogging is good for your business.

1. Blogs are an inexpensive way to market your business - It doesn’t take much money or effort to set up a blog. You can start a blog on Blogger.com, Typepad.com, or Wordpress.com and be up and running in about 5 minutes.
2. Blogs help you demonstrate your expertise - It’s easy to say that you have expertise in an area, but that doesn’t make your readers believe it. By blogging, you can demonstrate your expertise by providing tips, FAQs, anecdotes, and informal case studies that show what working with you is like.
3. Blogs build rapport with prospects and clients - People choose to work with people they like and trust. Good blog posts are conversational, so you sound like you’re talking with readers. Over time, your readers get to know you and feel that they know you personally.
4. Blogs can be a communication channel for employees - If you prefer not to publish a public blog, you can still create blogs behind your company firewall to allow team members to discuss projects or to close the communication gap between upper management and employees.
5. Search engines love blogs - If you’re looking for a way to boost your rank in Google, Yahoo, or MSN, starting a blog that focuses on specific keywords will improve your chance of getting a high ranking. Most blog templates are built with minimal coding and valid html, so search engines see more of your content not your site code.
6. Blogs broadcast your content - Most blogs notify (ping) other sites that you’ve updated your blog as soon as you hit the “post” button. Readers who have subscribed to your RSS feed get your updates almost immediately.
7. Blogging can be a form of networking - If you’re looking to meet peers or execs, check out if they have a blog, comment on their posts, and link back to your blog. The more you join in the conversation, the more people you’ll meet.
8. Readers like to read blogs - When confronted with most marketing messages (tv commercials, print ads, website banners, etc), most people are indifferent to annoyed. Very few people like being pitched to. With blogs, people actually opt in to receive communication from you - they want to hear what you have to say. That’s powerful.
9. Blogging is fun! Let’s face it. People hate doing things that they don’t want to do. With blogging, you get to meet and talk to all sorts of people from all over the world who want to hear what you have to say. What other type of marketing allows you this opportunity?

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