photo credit: Great Valley Center

“Communication is understanding” or so the saying goes. That saying is especially true when it comes to customers.
At first glance, business blogging may seem like a lot of work maybe even too much work. It is true that there is some work involved with blogging. However, that work will definitely pay off for your business in the long run.
Here are three reasons why you should consider creating a blog for your business:
Marketing
Blogging is a great way to get your marketing message across. A company blog allows you to reach your target market in a way that no other medium can. Someone who makes the extra effort to contact you through your blog, either by leaving a comment or through e-mail, is really interested in what you have to offer.
A good business blog will reinforce and enhance your company’s brand. The blog entries that you post help your clients and perspective clients understand who you are. Search engines will help you convey that understanding to people that you might not otherwise reach.
Finally, consider this: if you don’t have a business blog, it is likely that your competition will.
Cost
Blogging may be the most cost-effective marketing method that you will ever use. You can easily set up a business blog with very little cost. All that you really need is a domain name and place to host your blog. Even with these small expenditures, there is no other way that I know of to get as much marketing bang for your buck.
I recommend that you use a domain name related to your business and avoid using free hosting services like WordPress (www.wordpress.com) or Blogger (www.blogger.com). You can, however, download the WordPress content management system onto your own blog for free. There are many free business templates available on the Internet, so you don’t need to hire a graphic designer.
Communications
The bottom line is that a blog is about communication. With that end in mind you need to make sure that content on your blog is top-notch. Remember, the blog represents your company. For some people, the blog may be their first contact with your business.
Getting quality content for your blog may mean hiring a writer, or assigning the task to someone in your organization. While you don’t need to add new content to your business blog every day, it is important to post regularly. Your blog readers should feel that they are getting the inside scoop on your company.
A blog is more than just a series of articles, though. A business blog is a conversation between you, your customers, and your perspective customers. Make sure that comments are enabled and respond promptly and politely to anyone who leaves a comment. Be open and helpful. Blog with authority, but avoid turning your blog into an advertisement for your company.
Business Blogging – You Can’t Afford Not To Do It!
The prospect of running a business blog makes some business owners nervous. They either think that blogging will be a lot of work, or they think that it will cost too much. However, a business blog can be a valuable marketing tool. In fact, it is one of the most cost-effective methods of marketing that there is. A business blog can also open a valuable line of communication between you and your customer, fostering trust and relationship.

How tired are you of searching the web day in and day out for efficient wordpress plugins that help your blog? If so then today is your  day because  I have is the list of plugins that should be on every wordpress blog.

I’ve spent countless hours searching the web for these wordpress plugins for my blogs because with them they can simplify and automate lot of  work giving you more time to do what you need to do with your blogs.

#1. Akismet -

Akismet checks your comments against the Akismet web service to see if they look like spam or not and lets you review the spam it catches under your blogs “Comments” admin screen.

#2. All In One SEO -

Optimizes your Wordpress blog for Search Engines (Search Engine Optimization).

#3. Broken Link Checker -

This plugin is will monitor your blog looking for broken links and let you know if any are found.

#4. Wordpress Database Back Up -

WP-DB-Backup allows you easily to backup your core WordPress database tables. You may also backup other tables in the same database.

The Exec-PHP plugin executes PHP code in posts, pages and text widgets.

#6. Google XML Sitemaps -

This plugin will create a Google sitemaps compliant XML-Sitemap of your WordPress blog.

#7. MaxBlogPress Ping Optimizer -

Save your blog from getting tagged as ping spammer by installing this plugin.

#8. MaxBlogPress Favicon

Help create brand awareness by displaying a little favourite icon (favicon) in the title of our blog next to the URL.

#9. WP-Cache

WP-Cache is an extremely efficient WordPress page caching system to make you site much faster and responsive.

#10. Auto Hyperlink URLs

Auto-hyperlink text URLs in post content and comment text to the URL they reference.

#11. No Ping Wait

The purpose of the No Ping Wait plugin is to prevent Wordpress authors from having to wait for all of the update services to respond to new post pings.

#12. FD Feedburner Plugin

Redirects the main feed and optionally the comments feed to Feedburner.com.

#13. WordPress.com Stats

Tracks views, post/page views, referrers, and clicks.

#14. What Would Seth Godin Do

Displays a custom welcome message to new visitors and much more.

#15 WP Auto Tagger

This will automatically finds tags based on your post content.

#16 WP-O-Matic

Enables administrators to create posts automatically from RSS/Atom feeds.

#17 Sociable

Automatically add links on your posts, pages and RSS feed to your favorite social bookmarking sites.

These are the by far not the full list but these are the ones that will make your blog much easier to work with and function!

All the best,

Lina