So what’s the biggest reason small business owners should be blogging?

It’s reach! Blogs can often reach a larger audience faster (and certainly cheaper) than your normal, static website can. So it’s gotta be reach, right?

Sure. But I don’t feel it’s the most important reason to blog.

So if it’s not reach it’s gotta be the advantages in search engines. Search engines (read: Google) love blogs because their content is oft changing and their posts are often highly keyword focused. So there’s benefit in the search engines and that’s why businesses should blog.

All true. Yet, that’s not it.

Okay, how about this…the opportunity to grow a community around your business through the comment box. Comments lead to conversation which lead to relationships. The relationships, in turn, lead to all sorts of business opportunities.

Absolutely, without a doubt that’s true. Yet my opinion is we’re still putting the cart before the horse.

I’ve worked with dozens of small and service-oriented business clients over the past couple of years. Few have had the key ingredient to having a successful, flourishing business. That doesn’t mean they’re not successful. It means they’re not fulfilled with their success. It means they want/need more.

That key ingredient to growing a successful business is positioning.

Some think of positioning as just branding, image or identity. But it’s more than that. Positioning is how you’re perceived by your target audience. In other words, can you clearly illustrate that you have the solution to your target audience’s problem. It’s how you communicate what you do.

But to clearly and successfully communicate what you do, you must have that clarity yourself. And that’s what blogging affords.

When you blog, you write often about your business, your knowledge, your capabilities, etc. And you do so in ways that encourage people to respond. So by blogging, and meeting people in the comment box, you have immediate feedback about how clearly people are understanding what you know.

With a blog, you can take this a step further. You can also display your expertise in solving problems your audience face - whether personal or professional. You can offer advice on dealing with circumstances and write specifically to their needs. Then you can watch the response. If it’s positive, you know that you’re communicating well about what you do. And if not, you know that you need a bit of work.

And needing work is fine. It’s what having a business is all about. You need to allow your business to never be finished - to always be changing.

So small businesses, especially, can use blogging to experiment with how they talk to their audience. With a blog, they can explore different avenues for communicating. But moreover, they can find clarity in their business.

So how are you using your blog to find clarity in yours?

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