Blogging for Business: Describe Your Service or Product

Site advertising legal services for the Ike storm victims. Legal services advertised using the web, Internet Advertising Competition winner 2009

This is a continuation to my article on my blog writing and editing services. I also wonder why more service businesses are not using blogs directly to advertise? The business use of blogging, social networks, social tagging and indexes is new. But communication of business services and products is as old as business itself. Using new ways of communication takes a little experimentation but should not be that hard. Here is a story and commentary on using blogging for direct business information.

Last week I met with a business service provider. She is a consulting recruiter and develops recruiting strategies for companies and individuals. The core skills and knowledge she has packed down, the business side is an "on the job training" affair. She has sixteen years of experience and just started on her own business. The first few months in business she set up a blog, a page on FaceBook, updated her Linked-In profile and made a few sales directly to her old customers. She is at the starting blocks, got a few consultation hours and a few assignments. What's next? A "brochure site"? An additional page on the blog? An article about her offering on the blog? At our meeting, which did not cover her business promotion she asked if a brochure site needs lots of work and attention (SEO, social tagging, updating, google advertising). I was wondering why all this effort does not go to the blog. She said something like "it's just a blog, that's not what people expect from a business..."

Some people do not view a blog as ready for business. Some think that a brochure site is necessary for basic information, sample work (portfolio) and even PDF brochures which prospective customers can download and print. It seems like blogging and social networking is a transitional method to do business. This is probably the case in a few industries, but for the most part each blog article is essentially a page by itself. You can add a separate static page: "about" or "services" or "contact" on most blogging platforms. But in reality, why not add an article in the stream of the posts and make it part of your work. Actually, adding information periodically to the stream of articles has many advantages.

• You do not need a separate web site, account, address, contact... pages
• You can add a page or a link to the blog's sidebar and make it easy to find.
• One article can be linked to any other "about" or "services" article any time.
• Articles can also store PDF or image files of brochures.

But most of all, a blog can be your main destination. Newspapers do not have "about" or "services" page before the headline. Magazines proud themselves on a fresh attractive cover on every issue. If you write well and have fresh relevant ideas, a blog article is as good, no, BETTER than a landing page or a home page. If you find examples of "services" or "special offer" articles on professional service blogs please post the links in the comment section. I think that they are out there. If you can't find many it is just the nature of early use of blogs instead of brochure sites and full fledged static CMS sites. There is absolutely no reason why you can't explain your services, offer introductory deals or float an opinion on using your blog. This should sell your service, otherwise you are just going back to the old school of doing things. Think about it, it makes sense!