Start Blogging Now: 10 Reasons Why You Really Need a Blog for Your Business

1. It is perfect for creating a web presence for independent professionals who have something to say and who need people to get to know them and what they can do for them.

2. Having your own business blog gives you credibility and a forum where you can show your expertise.

3. Readers can comment directly onto your blog, creating interaction and interest.

4. No more waiting for your web designer to update your web site.

5. You can post to your blog yourself, about any issue, daily if you wish, and get it broadcast into the blogosphere instantly.

6. The search engines love blogs and will pick up your keywords easily, boosting your rankings, making it easier for people to find you on the web.

7. Customers are drawn to personality behind the business. Human voices convey intimacy beyond PR-babble. (To read about this topic read The Cluetrain Manifesto. The first chapter is available free online: http://cluetrain.com/apocalypso.html.)

8. You can network and build up a community of like-minded readers. You blog, people comment. Others blog, you comment. Before you know it, more people have heard of you and your business because the buzz gets passed around.

9. You can test out new ideas and get instant feedback. Get your customers and prospects in on the act now and let them help you help them - invite them to talk back! Let them see how you develop your products and services and they can show you how to best to serve them.

10. You can use your blog side-bars to promote your products, your affiliate products, run blog ads, sell books, and any other product or services you have. You don't have to include this in the body or content of your article; therefore your posts - your writing - can remain content rich and free of promotional hype.

Finally, email marketing and electronic newsletters are struggling because of over-crowded inboxes, spam problems and filters.

- On the average, 64.7% of the business e-mail you send is not even opened, let alone read. [source: Q3 2004 Email Trend Report, DoubleClick ]

- E-mail marketers are seeing their open-rates range from only "mid-20s to just over 50 %" [source: ClickZ.com]

- That means that you are losing at least 50% of your prospective buyers or readers. How much does that amount to in losses over the course of the next few years?

- AOL receives roughly 2 billion e-mail messages a day, of which about 75 percent are blocked and another 4 to 7 percent are sent to the bulk folder. [source: ClickZ.com]

Sit up and pay attention. The time to start blogging for your business is now.

Denise Wakeman of Next Level Partnership, and Patsi Krakoff of Customized Newsletter Services, have teamed up to create blogging classes and marketing services for independent professionals. You can read and subscribe to their blog at http://www.buildabetterblog.com