Branding is still one of the most important part of creating a niche for your company, and for ensuring your company's longevity. Marketing and advertising with publications, mailings, flyers, yellow books, etc. used to be the only methods of building your brand and getting your name known.

Today, blogging offers a unique opportunity for anyone to enhance their brand with the aura of relevance and expertise. And, apart from the time and perhaps administrative resources involved, is virtually free on an ongoing basis.

A small business blog is based on very simple technology: a series of comments displayed in chronological order on your Internet site. When a visitor responds to a blog post, a thread begins. As other visitors add their comments to the thread, the exchange builds a community of users around your blog. When people find your comments helpful and informative, your blog starts to generate word of mouth in a way that is only possible on the Internet.

Every time you post a new thought, comment, or tip on your company's blog, you take another step toward building your brand. In Internet terms, blog comments are "posted" or "published" on the Internet. Think about the significance of that for a moment. You used to be a just a communicator; blogging lets you become a publisher.

The Internet has allowed real estate guru Robert Allen, the writer of "Creating Wealth," to expand his brand to a huge audience. Every testimonial on his Internet site adds another building block to his online brand. That is how blogging builds your brand as an industry expert. Identify a need, a hot topic, a major issue or concern that your customers can relate to. When you start blogging about it, you attract Internet searchers to your blog.

Let's say you post a comment about business planning. If your web system is good enough to get your site ranked on the major search engines, business consulting clients will find you when they search for "business planning" on the Internet. Blogging lets potential clients find you on the Internet and your body of work will prove your expertise in your field giving you the gravitas you need to attract the best clients.

Remember: Search engine optimization is important, but your company's blog must add value to your readers' lives. If not, they won't come back a second time, and they won't create word of mouth. The best way to build your brand is by blogging about a fresh topic, something that no one else is talking about. The Internet is engineered to find real estate blogs that provide unique online expertise. Deliver your expert knowledge by blogging about what you know and soon you'll have a brand that's as familiar as Robert Allen's is.

Brett Miller, the founder of HoopJumper WebSystems, is the creator of Webepreneur, an easy-to-use blog building and broadcasting program for small business owners and individual service professionals that makes it easy to get your brand known. If you're a Small Business Owner and you want to take smarter strides with your branding, go to http://www.hoopjumper.com/ or http://www.webepreneur.com/ to see the other services offered.

About the Author

Author: Brett Miller

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