What is the purpose of a blog? I've looked at a few, but I can't decide if those are good examples of what a good blog should be because they seem to cover everything under the sun. If a blog is for a business, shouldn't the information be somewhat like a newsletter or magazine.

So, what should be in a good blog?

A blog can be another aspect of your marketing tool and can be used to attract traffic to your website. People are using blogs to talk about their business and what they do but in a way thats demonstrates their expertise through their knowledge to their potential clients as well as connecting with them.

If you have a target on audience in mind then you will find easier to write the content for your blog.

You may find Denise Wakeman site useful she's a business blogging guru and has lots of tips on business blogging. http://www.biztipsblog.com/

or Better Business Blogging http://www.betterbusinessblogging.com/
Hope that helps

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BlogWorkz WordPress Website Design Online Marketing & Virtual Assistant Services

As Bevalee said, it's a great way to interact with your customers or potential customers who are then able to comment on the content and open a direct dialog with you. As you are the owner of the blog you also have more control over this dialog than you might have on social networks or review sites.

Give your readers advice, notify them of special offers or links to free stuff (everyone loves free stuff!) like ebooks, video tutorials, etc. Blog about anything you think they might find useful, interesting, entertaining or of value to them.

If you do this people will also be more inclined to share your blog posts with others, for example on Twitter, Facebook, Digg and so on, thus extending your reach even further. Setting your blog up with Feedburner also lets you allow people to subscribe to your blog via email just like with an email newsletter.

Blogging about everything under the sun, as you say, isn't a good idea. The more targeted and niche orientated the better. You want to develop and maintain an audience that's interested specifically in your area of expertise. That way they know they've come to the right place and it's easier to convert them into clients.

Regular blogging also keep the search engines coming back for more which can also help your search engine ranking enormously. Search engines prefer sites that are regularly updated and a blog is the ideal way to achieve this as they can be notified immediately each time you create new content.

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European Virtual Assistant Services

Alcva, I absolutely agree with the previous two posts about a blog bringing traffic to your site. As a new blogger, I have noticed that every time I write a new blog I get new interest in my business. I've had four potential clients contact me just this week after reading a new post which brought them to my webpage, etc.

Bevalee, thanks for the site information!

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Rhonda at Taskme
Taskme