A blog can be a powerful asset to your company if you take the time to plan and create it. Blog is a shortened term derived from the word “weblog.” Individuals and businesses all over the world are reaching out to people through their blog. So if you are one of the few companies that doesn’t have a blog yet, it’s time to join the game. Whatever your business, there will always be industry news, information about your company, products and services to write about in your blog. Writing regularly in your company blog will show that your business is up to date and aware of changes in the industry.

A company blog can be a platform to share information, pictures, and video clips with your consumers. Just like it is important for businesses to have a website, now company blogs are the next necessary step for your business’s online presence. A blog topic can lead to productive discussions and generate helpful feedback from your consumers. A company blog is like having a second website which allows consumers to relate to your business on a more personal level. This opportunity will indirectly increase your brand awareness among consumers.

When you are setting up a company blog for your business it is essential to think about what kind of company blog you will want to have. It could be a news blog which discusses current events related to your industry and line of business. Or you could try and provide information that will help your consumers and promote the investment of your products in a casual manner. For example, if you are selling microwave Tupperware you could have easy microwave dinner recipes that can be made in your Tupperware. This way you are providing something helpful to consumers and you are also creating a need for your Tupperware.  Your company blog could have information just about your business itself. Topics could include the routine of your business, information about your branch offices, products and services, staff members and their involvement in your business. You could also choose to have a little bit of all the types of company blogs to provide different information for consumers on a daily or weekly basis.

source: http://www.deviantart.com

Though a company blog is a chance to show your business’s personal side, you should also make sure to maintain your professional image. It is imperative that you do not let your blog become stagnant. You need to upload your blog with fresh information on a regular basis. If you have never experienced setting up a company blog for your business you can hire the services of an Offshore SEO company. They will help you set up a blog and upload it with fresh content. This will help improve the credibility of your business and attract quality consumers to visit your website. Offshore SEO companies are cost effective options for seeking marketing assistance. If you have not yet set up a company blog for your business, you should not wait any longer.

So you have a company blog that you’ve just created. It’s practically empty except for one or two posts. It looks bare and you want to take the next step and optimize your blog so that you can build up a consistent flow of traffic. What can you do and where do you go? Widgets are the perfect option to make your company website SMO and SEO friendly. A widget is a small piece of code that you can insert into your website. The code inserts an application or a box that will perform some activity to attract visitors and consumers. There are widgets on the Internet for just about anything and you can find them all over. Widget Box is a website which provides codes that you can insert into your company blog. Widget Box collaborates with a variety of blogs and social networks including Facebook, Twitter, iGoogle, Type Pad, Blogger, WordPress, My Space, etc. Widget Box actually inserts the code in for you automatically once you direct which social network or blog platform you want to use it on. Widget Box will let you customize the background colors, the size of the application, and test out or preview the application. If you are HTML savvy, It will also give you the code to embed yourself. Did I mention this was a free web 2.0 resource? I will now share with you the top 5 widgets you can insert from Widget Box onto your company blog, to help improve its rankings.

Social Bookmark Buttons. This widget displays all the social bookmarks on your company website. Social Bookmarks include Delicious, Facebook, Digg, Reddit, Furl,  Technorati, Magnolia, Stumble Upon and many more. Inserting this widget allows visitors to easily distribute the information they found interesting on your blog by using their social network accounts. Collaborating with social networks will help your social media optimization campaign and will help attract more visitors to your website.

Latest Google News – SEO News Updates. This widget displays a live feed of the latest SEO news updates from Google News. To stay on top of the latest SEO trends this is an extremely helpful application. Visitors would be able to view the topic updates and be able to click on whatever topic interests them and have the full news description open up in a second window. This widget would be ideal for Offshore SEO company websites. There are other widgets also that provide news and updates based upon the industry and topic of interest you choose. There are other widgets that just display SEO information on your website such as the number of visitors on your website, the page rank of your website. Some widgets even categorize the visitors according to which country they are from. If you are able to analyze the countries where you receive most of your company website traffic from, you can accordingly plan your campaign around this useful information and bring in more business.

YouTube Sidebar Widget. The name of the widget basically explains it. The widget after plugging in your YouTube user id information will display the videos you have uploaded on YouTube. Anyone who visits your company blog will be able to also see the videos related to your services and products in the sidebar area. In general, YouTube is a very popular social network.  To allow visitors to interact with your YouTube account, it is a fool proof method of getting consumers to come back and visit your blog  or website again. People are curious to see what others upload on YouTube and would be most likely willing to visit again and check back if you have uploaded any new videos. Videos provide a personal, hands on experience to your followers and consumers, so it is best to take advantage of widgets such as this.

Google Search. Being affiliated with the best search engine on the Internet is always a good thing. Allowing visitors to search the Internet with Google search engine from the convenience of your website will improve the overall quality of your website. This widget will display a Google search bar at the top of your company blog or website for visitors and followers to utilize. This widget also has transparent backgrounds to easily gel with the layout of your website.

Contact Us. What is the most important part of Internet Marketing? Communication. That’s right. So in order to hear back from your visitors and followers you can insert a widget that will display a contact form on the sidebar of your company blog. The contact form allows the visitor to fill in their name, email, subject and message. With this kind of feedback you can fine tune your SEO marketing strategies and use social media optimization to help build traffic for your website. Now that I have gone over some of the important widgets you can utilize from Widget Box, you can also browse the website for other widgets that might be of interest to your company website. There are widgets that insert games, surveys, calorie counters, recipes, movie trailers, songs, podcasts, and much more. The possibilities of what you can incorporate on your website are endless. Make your website Social Media Optimization savvy by allowing followers and users to connect to their social networks through a variety of widgets.

As you’ve probably noticed, we at Pragmites Consulting are currently revamping our company blog. From what started with just a handful of employees headed by Prakash and Gaurav Gurbaxani, it has now grown into a healthy company of 20+ employees. This company initially started in 2007, providing marketing services to local clients in Pune. With time and experience we now provide a host of Internet marketing services such as search engine optimization (SEO), social media optimization (SMO), search engine marketing (PPC), and website design to offshore clients. We’ve decided to give a new look to our blog and start sharing our experience by regularly posting on our blog each week. Our blog posts are written by various employees from Pragmites to give you a personal account of our thoughts, philosophies, work trends and discoveries from the Internet marketing world.

(source: http://www.savagechickens.com/)

We decided to reveal our first hand experience of setting up our company blog in this post, to give others an idea of how to create an ideal company blog. People should understand what a crucial building block a blog can be for companies who want to build traffic for their website and expose their brand online. In my opinion, a company deciding to have a blog is like rolling over and offering their vulnerable underbelly to their consumers. It’s a chance for companies to loosen their neckties and show their personal side in a professional atmosphere. That can either work for you or against you depending on how you use your blog.

It is important to keep in mind these tips when writing a company blog, to ensure it doesn’t backfire against your company image.

1. Posting regularly is a must. You can’t create hype around your company by starting a blog, gaining readers and visitors and then let it fizzle out. Make sure you’re providing something substantial to your readers on a regular basis, to give them a reason to visit. Don’t copy other posts you find on the Internet. Discussing similar topics is understandable but make sure you personalize it and make it your own. If you have to discuss something you found on someone else’s blog, make sure you give them their due credit.
2. Never use the blog to snub another brand or company. True, a blog is a place for one to jot down their true feelings, thoughts and opinions. However, you have to keep in mind that EVERYONE will be reading your blog. Your competitors, previous customers, prospective customers, business partners and investors all can read it, so it’s important to maintain a certain sense of responsibility regarding the material you put on your blog.
3. Have entertaining material. A blog can be a platform to showcase interesting videos, field advice, pictures, updates, theories in your line of work, breaking industry news, and much more. People should take away the idea that you are up to date in your field of work and are under a constant state of research and development when it comes to working. Impress people by showing that you’re on top of your game!
4. Don’t ramble on when writing a post. People get bored by long drawn out write-ups easily. So try and keep your posts on the shorter side. Limit your posts to around 500 to 700 words per entry. It helps to have colorful imagery incorporated throughout your post. For example, if you are explaining in your post how to use a program it would be recommended to include snapshots to make it easier for readers to understand what you’re writing about. It also gives a clean and attractive look to your posts when you are able to break your paragraphs with interesting images related to your write up.
5. Use grammatically correct English. Just because this is a personal aspect of your company, doesn’t mean you can forego all the usual literal parameters. Sure, you can give your blog post a casual touch by delving in a heart-to-heart write up for your consumers and clients. But make sure you have grammatically correct sentences and proper diction.
6. Don’t take undue advantage of stuffing as many keywords as possible in your blog posts. Sure you can do that if you want. But users will see through this façade and stop visiting your company blog when they realize you’re not keeping their interests in mind.
7. Be careful when promising something on your blog postings. There are a lot of companies that choose to utilize their blogs to reveal product release dates.  If you don’t end up fulfilling those promises it will look pretty irresponsible on your company’s part.
8. Make sure the look of your blog correlates with your company website. Having a one theme for your company blog and another for your company website looks very amateur and disorderly. Logos and company colors, should be similar throughout both the websites so visitors can identify with your brand easily. You should host your blog on your domain.
9. Ensure your blog has the option for visitors to leave comments and feedback. This is crucial to your blog, as it gives you the opportunity to directly communicate with your consumers. Consumers will feel they can relate to your brand if their voices are being heard and can address their concerns.
10. Install Google Analytics to track down how many visitors you had each day. This will give you an idea of how company blogging is working for you. You will be able to review the effect of the enhancements or changes you make on your blog to see what does and doesn’t work for your company blog.

(source: http://www.dorktower.com)