If you are looking for an inexpensive way to drive customers to your company's website, a company blog is just the thing to do the job. A new blog post can encourage past visitors to visit your company's website again while enabling new customers to discover your business. A business blog is a fantastic opportunity to give your brand a digital presence and identity that you control.

A great business blog is not a sentence or two followed by a link to the sales page. That's a commercial, and nobody likes those. Instead, a great one provides useful content to all of its readers. First, establish yourself as a credible source of information on a problem in your industry. Next, point out a problem your prospective customer may be having, and play up how significant it is. Once they trust you and understand the problem you can help them address, they are far more likely to respond favorably to your solution. A great example is the diabetes blog from wholesalediabeticsocks.com. It offers a nice guide on diabetic socks. This post talks about foot problems that diabetics encounter and the health benefits of wearing the socks. The article is entirely informational and there is no hard sell.

Nearly every business owner appreciates this concept in theory, but feel that they lack the ideas or skills to put it into practice. An easy way to get started is by answering frequently asked questions about your industry or business. You already know that people are interested in these topics because they are frequently asked about, so why not write a blog post about them? You also do not need to worry about updating your business blog on a daily basis. Weekly or biweekly updates are more than enough to keep your blog relevant so you won't burn through your ideas too quickly. Plan, then establish a clear schedule, and stick to it.

Search engines like Google, Yahoo, and Bing favor websites that update content regularly over those that have been stagnant for some time. A company blog gives the option to add new information to your site while allowing the rest of your site to remain the same. Not only does your information appear up to date, but having a blog with new content can help increase your website's search rankings.

You can also bring in more traffic from search engines by knowing exactly what terms or keywords that prospective customers are searching. Google Adwords provides a keyword tool that can help identify the exact phrases used and their number of monthly searches. Once you have that information, you can plan your topics around these keywords and include them in your blog post to optimize your content for search engines.

If you lack time or writing ability, you can outsource the content of your blog posts and still receive a quality product. There are companies that specialize in writing blog posts. This ensures that every post engages your target audience and encourages them to make use of your services.

No matter from where your content comes, you can increase its impact by combining it with your company's social media presence. Your Facebook page can include a link to your blog, while Twitter and LinkedIn profiles can include a snippet of the most recent blog post to encourage followers to read the rest. If your entire social network starts discussing the most recent post, you know it was right on the mark.

Success can also be measured using free software such as Google Analytics, which breaks down not only how many people visited your site but how they got there. This can help you identify what type of blog post works best.

Company blogs are as different as the companies that own them. The very best ones form a connection with customers and brings in new readers by offering highly sharable information that is important to the reader. Take the extra effort to plan, research, and write for your blog and watch your company grow!