Blogs are loosely defined as “a web page made up of chronologically arranged articles, which are frequently updated, linked to other web pages.” It is in fact a short-form of the term “weblogs” coined by Jorn Barger in 1997.

Business blogs can be considered to be a free corporate tool to communicate to & with customers and/or employees newest updates and or information to promote the company’s expertise.

Moreover, blogs, as a low-cost option to achieve web presence, with a low-level of knowledge of html-code and the like, is very viable to owners of small businesses, as well as growing businesses who are conscious of keeping their overheads low. Being easy to use, blogs may be updated as an when the owner decides to, as compared to contacting the web designer to update a small portion of the website every time there is a new product, or a new patch for software, etc.

Business blogs are also very accessible, potential customers and advisors may stumble upon the blog by chance from links from other blogs, or even search engines. This will allow the blogger to share his company’s expertise in the given field with a large audience. Examples of Business blogs are Gizmodo.com, Loosetooth.com.

There are many ways business blogs may post, for example:

• FAQs (Frequently Asked Questions)

FAQs may be posted by the blogger based on the questions received to his email. For example, if a new product was launched, and there were a lot of questions emailed, then the blogger could respond to them via the blog post.

Source: http://sbinformation.about.com/cs/ecommerce/a/bblogs.htm

• Word-of-mouse. Because so many people have access to electronic forms of communication, it's easy for information to spread quickly. If you have a great new product, an innovative idea or an exciting marketing strategy, you can be sure your blog readers will pass it along via e-mail to others who will pass it along, too. Soon, your marketing message has reached hundreds if not thousands or millions of people.
• Speed. If something goes wrong or if you have quick-breaking news, a blog can get the word--or your response--out immediately, much faster than any other form of media.
• Awareness and loyalty. Purchasers of your product can read about it, post comments and engage in discussion. You can respond. Others can comment. This personal communication can create an open, honest, trust-building dialog that will make consumers more aware, more willing to try your products and more loyal to your brand.
• Feedback. Businesses can find out immediately what people think of their company, products and ideas. But be warned: This takes a thick skin, as all feedback is not positive. But if you're really willing to listen, this information can be invaluable. Better yet, feedback can be generated quickly--over days, if not hours. A blog can act like a never-ending focus group that gives a company great insights into their consumers' thoughts, likes and actions.
• Community halo-effect. Overall, most bloggers are friendly, helpful (by linking to each other's sites), and eager to cooperate to make the blogosphere--the collective group of blogs--a better place. By simply being an active part of the culture, you get the benefit of the doubt and your product becomes one that bloggers will consider purchasing.

Businesses need to be aware that blogging creates a permanent record of thoughts and ideas, which may be a good or bad thing. For a persistent complainer, negative postings to a blog may come back to haunt them when they apply for another job, an internal transfer, or even during their annual review. Since blogging is a recent experience for organizations, perhaps the most important disadvantage is a lack of precedents and guidelines for organizations.

Businesses also need to be aware of their legal liabilities for non moderated content presented on a blog. Blogs may put a company’s assets, reputation and future at risk. Without strategic blog-related policies, rules and procedures, organizations face the potential for workplace lawsuits.

If the blog is to be an official record of the organization, then the organization must provide workable access, indexing tools, preservation, scheduling, storage and access for as long as needed for administrative, legal, research and other purposes.
Businesses need to be able to separate hype from reality in order to maintain some credibility with customers. People will not continue to read a blog if they determine it to be light on facts and heavy on marketing and advertising.

And finally, we cannot overlook the impact of blogs and blogging on people at work. Many people visit blogs, and spend an average of more than three hours per week, or about 40 minutes per day, engaged with non-work related blogs.

Source : BLOGS AND BUSINESS: OPPORTUNITIES AND HEADACHES
Wallace Wood, Bryant University, wwood@bryant.edu
Robert Behling, Arrowrock Technologies, rbehling@hotmail
Susan Haugen, University of Wisconsin – Eau Claire, shaugen@uwec.edu

1. Instructional Business Blogs
   Instructional blogs are extremely popular, and they come in many flavors. If you can teach your audience about a subject that’s important to them, you have what it takes to develop a popular instructional blog. For example, if a company sells accounting software, it might develop an instructional blog to teach readers about accounting methods, technologies and best practices. This would help the company develop readership and interaction, while also educating readers toward its products.
2. Controversial Business Blog
   Controversial blogs can bring in a big readership. But the trick here is to avoid being controversial just for the sake of controversy. Some companies / niches are naturally controversial, and their business blogs are an extension of this. For example, a business that sells political merchandise could use a blog to generate legitimate controversy of a political nature. This could help generate buzz, readership, and sales.
3. Entertaining Business Blogs
   People love to be entertained, and some companies are able to tap into this for business-related purposes. For almost every product or service, there’s an audience who finds it entertaining. This is especially the case with the hobby industry and niche products / services. In such industries, a company might use its blog to educate as well as entertain its audience.
4. Behind-the-Scenes Business Blog
   This approach to business blogging gives your customers and readers a behind-the-scenes look at your products and services. When done well, this business blog strategy can help the company foster trust among its key audience. When readers learn about the people behind the company, and how they go about their work, they are more apt to trust the company on a whole.
5. High-Value Business Blogs
   Naturally, people are naturally attracted to things of value. We seek value constantly in both our personal and professional lives. As such, a business blog that offers value in some form will eventually attract readers. Those readers will become advocates of the blog, happy to share its value with friends or colleagues.
   Value comes in many forms. Information can be valuable, if it helps us perform a task, save money, live a better life, etc. The greater this value, the more people it will attract. So a business blog that helps its audience succeed in some way has great potential for growth and popularity.

1. This community building and marketing have the capabilities of business blogs.
2. A blog can be an incredible tool for sharing information and expertise. The CEO of iMakeNews ,Kathleen Goodwin, says business blogs "can offer organizations a platform where information, data, and opinion can be shared and traded among employees, customers, partners, and prospects in a way previously impossible: a two-way, open exchange"
3. Other than sending out communiqués through email that may or not be responded to, a blog offers a business a chance to build a real community. Blogs make it easy and quick for people to post, comment, and update posts - making it easy for everyone to participate.
4. Business blogs can be a powerful marketing tool.
5. Marketing through business blogs can also be done more subtly, through using the blog to attract and develop a regular audience.
6. There are two important things for a business web site in order to be informative; first is to makes it easy to add and update content, so there's always something fresh on the site; Then it helps establish a relationship with visitors and build a climate of trust. Potential customers get to know you and know about your company through your blog.

What is a Blog?

• According to Pyra Labs Blogger, "A blog is a web page made up of usually short, frequently updated posts that are arranged chronologically—like a what's new page or a journal." The term is actually weblogs coined by Jorn Barger in 1997. The huge increase of weblogs happened in 1999 when companies & developers made easy blogging software and tools for business blogs. Since 1999, the number of blogs on the Internet has exploded from a few thousand to to millions. These figures falls in two main categories which is personal blogs and business blogs.
Weblogs can fall into two main categories: Personal Blogs: It is a mixture of a personal diary, opinion posts with research links. Business Blogs: It can be a corporate tool for communicating with customers or employees in order to share knowledge and expertise. Business blogs are popular in the business community now as Blogs are an excellent method to share a company profession, build additional web resources and connect with potential customers in the quickest way.

What does Blogging Provide to Business?

• Blog software is easy to get around and are user friendly. It simply publish your thoughts and link to resources to your blog. All these can be done at just at push of a few buttons. There are Blog software companies such as, Movable Type, Blogger.com and Typepad all offer easy blogging tools for company who intent to get started on a business blog.
• Blogging is a low-cost in running and in maintaining it, alternative to having a web presence. For small business owners who are tight in their budget and have no exprience in designing a web page, blogging offers an inexpensive method to get your company's name out on the Internet.
• Updating the weblog is a much quicker process as compare to contacting a web designer with changes or doing the coding and uploading yourself.
• Business blogs provide your small business with a chance to share your expertise and knowledge with a larger audience. It benefit both consultants and knowledge workers.
• Blogs do have a weakness which is it does not provide the functionality of web pages, has limited e-commerce solutions and can be time-consuming with regular posts.


Examples of Business Blogs

• Gizmodo is a weblog about everything about gadgets and gizmos for those who want to remain on the cutting edge of consumer electronics. As a web magazine, Gizmodo is quickly building a specialized audience in consumer electronics with an advertising business model.
• Research Buzz is an excellent resource tool for Internet research. An information provider, Research Buzz provides advertising and a special paid edition of their newsletter.
• Joel on Software is a blog that displays Joel Spolsky's knowledge and views on software development. The blog acts as a method for Joel to highlight his expertise and promote his small business, Fog Creek Software.
• Jupiter Research, a top business market research company has a blog for each company analyst. The weblog provides analysts with the means to connect with their audience on a regular basis.
• Loosetooth.com Shop Blog, by Brandy Agerbeck, is an online art shop blog that provide customers with a way to get to know the store owner. This blog is an e-commerce site with buy and shop options.
• MacroMedia the software company provides a customer service blog for users and staff to share solutions in an organized fashion.

Source: http://sbinformation.about.com/cs/ecommerce/a/bblogs.htm

Many times, though, these URLs are TOO keyword-rich. In other words, the URL has too many words in it.

We have seen clients use keyword URLs that have 10 to 15 words strung together with hyphens; or blogs - we have seen them even longer there. A typical WordPress blog will use the title of the post as the post slug, unless you defined something different.

The thing to be aware of is, ask yourself: “How does this look to a regular user?” - because if, somebody comes to your page or maybe, a competitor does a search and finds 15 words all strung together like variants of the same word, then that does look like spam, and they often will send a spam report.

You can see that even your blog post slugs have the potential to appear spammy and “keyword stuffed,” which doesn’t look great for your readers and may end up getting flagged as “spam.”

So how can you prevent your blog from appearing spammy? I’d strongly recommend that you curb the length of your URLs. There are a couple of different approaches to this in WordPress:

1. Hand-craft your own “Post Slug” when you are writing the post. To do so, simply type in your desired post slug into the “Post Slug” field found on the right-hand side of the “Write Post” page in the WordPress admin. You can mirror your post’s title but drop throwaway words like “the” and “and”. You can take the first four words or so of the title as your slug.
2. Use a WordPress plugin that will trim your post slugs down to a more manageable size, i.e. to five or six words. There are two plugins to choose from that will accomplish this: the WordPress Slug Trimmer plugin or the Automated SEO Friendly URL plugin

• Instructional Business Blogs are blogs that teach your audience about a subject that are important to them and what it takes to develop a popular instructional blog.
• Controversial Business Blog are blogs that bring in a big readership which is to avoid being controversial just for the sake of controversy.
• Entertaining Business Blogs are blogs that entertain people through hobby industry and niche products / services and it also educate as well as entertain its audience.
• Behind-the-Scenes Business Blogs are blogs that gives your customers and readers a behind-the-scenes look at your products and services and helps the company to foster trust with the reader.
• High-Value Business Blogs are blogs that attract people for a value which in both personal and professional lives, readers will become advocates of the blog, happy to share its value with friends or colleagues.