by Claudia Bruemmer

A business blog is an important part a wholesaler’s online marketing strategy that can help general merchandise suppliers get found and generate more business. Granted, it takes effort and resources to build a corporate blog, but despite the investment, there are ten good reasons to consider a business blog.

1. Blogs can improve your search rankings
A well-written blog that provides valuable information and is well optimized can attract a lot of search traffic. If you and your employees can come up with one post each day, your business can quickly build up an enormous blog archive that contains many keyword-rich articles. This content will be picked up by the search crawlers, and once they find you, they will return for more and keep sending site traffic.

2. Blogs build a dialogue and help with problem solving
People get many ideas on a daily basis, but few bother to write them down. By recording your business thoughts and questions on a corporate blog, this can lead to problem solving and help generate solutions. You’d be surprised how many others have faced the same problems and can contribute to the dialogue.

3. Blogs are great for crisis management
The web has the power to distribute information far and wide quickly. When you write a blog post, the information goes around the world instantly, making your blog a powerful tool for crisis management. Say you have an urgent product update you need to communicate to consumers immediately. Post on your blog, propagate on Twitter and Facebook, and most people will see it in 24 hours. You also notify through normal channels, but you have tipped people off and they will admire you for it.

4. Blogs can be used for relationship marketing
Relationship marketing builds trust between you and the consumer, increasing the probability of future transactions. You can engage customers in a conversation through your blog to build relationships that lead to trust and customer loyalty. In fact, blogs can do the same job as emails, but with pull rather than push marketing, which people like better.

5. Blogs can humanize your company by giving it a human voice
Because of the easy-going, conversational nature of blogs vs. other content writing, they can give a human voice to your company. This creates good will, and can also provide valuable feedback you can use for updating and improving your products and services.

6. Blogs can be used to build trust and confidence in your company
An informative business blog that is open and honest about its products and services can help your customers, employees and stakeholders see that you have nothing to hide and are not holding back information they might need about your products and services. This builds trust and confidence in your company.

7. Customer service and feedback
You can use your blog as a direct communication channel for soliciting feedback from your customers. It can also be used to let them know you understand and want to satisfy their needs. It puts you in touch with global customers, allowing you to provide the services they need while letting them know you are responsive. When they are pleased, they can spread the word.

8. Blogs can differentiate you from your competitors
A blog that offers valuable content and is optimized with keywords in the title, links key terms to previous posts, and is properly promoted, can position you over your competitors, differentiating you from the crowd.

9. Blogging can help with reputation management by monitoring the blogosphere
In order to maintain a good company blog, you must monitor the blogosphere. The way news travels around the blogosphere, it’s advantageous to be in the right place at the right time to address any issues that arise about your company or products. You can monitor the blogosphere with Google Alerts for your company and products. In fact, we recently wrote about how you can Manage Your Reputation with Google’s Me on the Web, which allows you to get instant alerts as soon as the information is published online.

10. Bloggers help generate more online leads
A 2010 HubSpot study revealed that businesses that blog gathered 68 percent more online leads than businesses without blogs. The archive of growing articles starts to impact lead growth once 20+ articles become available.

As you can see, there are many good reasons why wholesalers and suppliers of general merchandise should maintain a company blog. Yes, it requires an investment, but the rewards far outweigh the cost.