Whether your company is large or small, a business blog is a great way to get the word out about your products and services. You may be reading this thinking, “I already have a website for my company, why would I need a business blog, too?” Well, I will tell you! Your company’s website more than likely has an About Us page, a Products page, and a Contact page. But, does it have up-to-the-minute news, information, and current offers that you would like your customers to hear about? This is when it is advantageous to have a business blog. By doing so, you can connect directly with your customers and have open communications with them about your services and why “they should be buying your products.” With a blog, you also have the benefit of going into more detail about your company in an informal setting with the ability to have a one-on-one conversation — which customers love!
To start a business blog, you will need a blogging platform, which is basically just a fancy name for where your blog will be “housed” — technically known as “hosted.” This is where Compendium comes in. They are a company that offers a full business blogging platform to create your blog in which they handle the back-end of it — or in other words — the behind the scenes action.
What Does Compendium Offer?
By using Compendium as your business blogging platform, all you will need to do is supply them with the content you wish to be published. If you do not want to do this by yourself, they have creative software and online assistants to help you every step of the way. They can also handle all of your customer’s e-mails that come in and out of the blog by seeding through testimonials, personal stories regarding your products and services, and buyer’s reviews. The great part is that you still have full control to edit or disregard any comment that you do not wish to have published.
The Greatest Benefits of Using Compendium
The major selling point of using Compendium, however, is that they offer broadcasting tools to assist you with sharing and displaying your blog’s content on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. Even better, every single page on your blog will have built-in search engine optimization (SEO), which will skyrocket your company’s name in the search engines for all of your keywords and will increase your traffic tremendously. Compendium’s motto is “We take care of all sorts of technicalities so that even a non-technical person can start blogging quickly and easily.” They also state that, “You blog. We do the heavy-lifting. We keep your platform maintained, taking care of the software updates and the technical maintenance so you can focus on the content.”
Compendium is definitely an awesome business blogging platform to use, but there has to be a catch, right?
The Downside of Compendium
The biggest downfall appears to be Compendium’s prices. As of this writing, you will pay anywhere from $3,500 to $50,000 a year on their services — depending on your needs and what you have them doing for you. This is a steep price to pay for a lot of people — especially if you are a new company just starting out and trying to get your foot in the door. If the funds are not there yet, you will probably be better off outsourcing your work by advertising on eLance, oDesk, or Guru.com to a freelancer that can help maintain your blog at a lower cost.
Regardless of what you decide to do in the end, do yourself a favor and start a blog for your company, either way. It is the best approach to get ahead of the competition, get your company’s name out to a wider market, and gain loyal customers who will keep coming back!
Stacy G is a freelance writer available on WriterAccess, a marketplace where clients and expert writers connect for assignments. WriterAccess is powered by ideaLaunch.
