Up until a few years ago blogs were viewed with some skepticism, they were, in essence, a place where people posted photo’s of their last vacation and wrote never ending reviews about a ‘great’ restaurant they had found.

Blogs, it could be argued were ridiculed and were not taken all that seriously.

However, today the blog has transformed itself into a powerful marketing tool, to build an audience, inform people about products, expertise, knowledge and services, and ultimately bring potential customers to a website.

According to a report on Hubspot (an inbound marketing software company), companies who post up to 15 posts per month generate 5 times more traffic to their website than companies that don’t blog at all.

A good blog has become one of the best ways to attract new visitors to a site, and inform people about a brand. Thereby creating a platform to turn strangers into customers – this is known as inbound marketing. The goal is to write educational and informative content so that the right prospective customers can find it. Once you have a regular traffic, your viewers will become promoters of your business, more people will come to your site and our friends at Google will place you higher on their search engine, which is especially effective for small businesses.

Don’t get me wrong, a blog doesn’t automatically provide you with a magic wand to suddenly obtain a huge amount of new business overnight. I have sat in meetings with clients when the sheer mention of a blog has filled their eyes with terror, with a look on their face that says, ‘not a blog, now I have to spend hours a week writing something nobody will ever read. I will post it on my website in the hope that someone, somewhere will find it’.

To a point that is true, however like most things it takes time to build momentum and attract an audience. Despite the myth blogs have of sapping all your time and energy they can be written in a couple of hours, they don’t have to be the length of ‘War and Peace’ (200-800 words is just fine) and if posted regularly weekly or bi-weekly, they can actually have a positive effect on your business.

I started writing a weekly blog for a client a year ago. To begin with the results were mediocre and traffic was slow. However 6 months down the line word began to get out, views increased, and on Facebook alone the posts are regularly seen by over 3000 people on a weekly basis (I believe one week the most popular post reached over 11,000). Just imagine how many additional people that has brought to the companies website and exposed them to the brand.

There was no magic formula for this level of success, just interesting content and regular well-written posts that people found informative and engaging.

My point is this; a blog can be a powerful tool. There are some excellent blogs available on the web and once you find one you like and trust a good blog can become a go to place for research, facts and helpful information. Many people spend time researching their field and sharing their knowledge –for free. The goal isn’t to ask for money, but by sharing their knowledge and becoming the ‘go to’ source of information, the results speak for themselves and a business can reap the rewards.