You know that old saying, “do as I say, not as I do?” Well, it is important to remember as you read this article. As a small business owner, it has been very difficult for me to make time to update my blog. Although I am very aware of how important blogging is, and how beneficial it can be to growing my business, I've been putting it at the bottom of my priority list. At the top, of course, are all the activities I need to complete to take care of my customers. Luckily, I've had enough business to keep me so busy that the priority list is a very long one. At least that is my excuse as to why this is the first article I've posted in quite some time.

But this article is not about sharing sad stories about how we are all too busy to maintain our blogs. This article is meant to help you, and me, get back on track to keep an active blog as part of our regular routines. The truth is, when we say we “don't have the time,” what we are really saying is, “I don't see this as a necessary priority.”

For that reason, I want to remind us why blogging is so valuable and important:

• Blog articles attract prospects to your website. By titling your blog using keywords, the article is more easily found on search engines and will drive traffic to your site from those looking for more information or answers on a topic you address.
  
  
• Blogs are a great way to gain credibility. Writing educational articles help your audience to see you as a knowlegeable resource in your field. It gives you a chance to show off your education and/or experience in a certain area.
  
  
• A blog can help you build links into your site. Inbound links are a key element in algorithms search engines use to decide page rank. Once your blog is written, it can be bookmarked on all the available bookmarking sites and it can be shared among the internet community where others may choose to link to your article as a resource from their site. You need to create and provide valuable content so that you have the potential for others to link into your site.
  
  
• The blog gives you an opportunity to increase your ranking for keywords. Fresh content on your blog is a factor in page rank with search engines, so adding more and more articles helps you to appear as a valuable resource to search engines for keywords you use in your content.
  
  
• Blogging may help you stay ahead of the competition with your knowledge. Often times it requires a bit of research to complete an article. If you are blogging often, you will be learning often.

So each time you are making that “to do list” for the day, try to push your blogging back up to the top. All of us could use more customers and blogging is a great way to attract that new business. I promise to do the same moving forward!