Most businesses recognise the importance of having a blog on their website. What is not so widely understood is how best to maximise its effectiveness. Some think of it as little more than a corporate diary of news and events, possibly laced with stories relating to individuals in the company. A good blog needs to be a lot more than this to be effective. Above all, a blog needs to be entertaining and cover things that are interesting and relevant to your readers.

A blog is not a direct sales tool and should not be used for selling. There are plenty of other places on a web site to list customer case studies or the virtues of particular products. A blog should have a distinctive voice which is friendly and conversational without being flippant or irrelevant. Ideally, a blog post should also have an ‘angle’. It can be highly opinionated as long as its perspective is both useful and interesting.

The style of writing is crucial. This is why so many businesses engage outside agencies to write regular blog posts for them. In particular, your headline requires careful consideration. Not only is it what ’sucks people in’, it permits you to reference something that is ‘bang up to date’ and therefore more likely to attract interest from search engines.

Finally, a blog post isn’t just for Christmas or any other time of the year. If you start a blog, make sure you post regularly. So many sites have an interesting blog post which is over six months old. When it gets that old, it’s no longer interesting… or even a blog.