and how do I go about starting one?

Any recommendations - certain sites to choose for a blog?
I have no experience with them, but I've heard having a blog is a good marketing tool.

My business is a local service-based one. Does that make a difference?


Please explain and advise!
Thank you!

~Cathy

www.todays-errands.com

Cathy,

I think you have a great business concept and promoting it shouldn't be too hard.

If you want contact me and we can talk


Joanna Swank
www.jswank.com
Marketable Concepts
info@jswank.com

Cathy,

Blogs are great as long as you have the time to devote to using them. We have developed quite a few blogs for business owners and they can be an effective tool for marketing.

WordPress is the best platform in my opinion, they are easy to setup and to manage as well as offer many free add-ons that can make your blog more interesting.

It does not matter if you are local or national, if you put the time in to building content on your blog you can generate good traffic from search engines.

I do stress that you maintain a professional look to your blog and your website. There are tons of Blogs out there for people to choose from, the last thing that you want to do is scare them away (the free hosting on your website, with GoDaddy ads would be an instant killer).

Blogs can be added directly into your website, so that it creates a unified look with your website. The best way to proceed with getting a blog is to have a developer add one to your website, the other alternative is to go to WordPress, Blogger, etc. and sign-up for a free blog. This disadvantage to this is that your domain for your blog will be todays-errands.Blogger.com and not actually your domain, this is called a sub-domain. Search engine wise this is a poor choice. When a blog is installed in your own website you could have your blog be todays-errands.com/Blog or /news etc.

If you want to learn more about Blogs, and Blogging visit our Blog page on our website. http://enginesofcreation.com/blog-design.cfm.

--

Thanks,
Dan La Bate
Creative Director & SEM - Engines of Creation.com
http://enginesofcreation.com


Phone: 518.842.3242
Fax: 866.643.4125
dan@enginesofcreation.com

I personally really love typepad. It does cost but it is minimal and you can customize it and do all kinds of things with it plus it gets great search engine traffic. Being local is an advantage you can market your blog in local directories for example.

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Cathy,

Here are a few benefits to business blogging. You can find more at:
http://sbinformation.about.com/od/businessblogfaq/f/businessblogs8.htm

Build Community: Business blogs provide your small business with a chance to share your expertise and knowledge with a larger audience. An opportunity to connect with a wider audience and build a community is a strong benefit for consultants and knowledge workers.


Easy Web Publishing Solution: Blog software is easy to use. Simply write your thoughts, link to resources, and publish to your blog, all at the push of a few buttons. Blog software companies such as TypePad or Blogger.com offer easy blogging tools to get started. Updating the weblog is a faster process than contacting a web designer with changes or doing the coding and uploading yourself.


Higher Search Engine Rankings: Search engine marketing is hot. The search market has become the Holy Grail of Internet advertising and continues to grow faster than our expectations. We believe search is actually gaining some market share from other types of online marketing.

Kim

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