Network Solutions® Helps Small Businesses Use Blogs to Connect with Customers

March 12, 2007; 04:04 AM

The use of blogging in business has become a popular and successful trend in the online marketing world recently. And now, Network Solutions has added free blogs to its Unix-based hosting packages to help small and medium-sized businesses connect with customers, boost sales, enhance brand visibility, and improve existing or future product offerings. In a few easy to follow steps, customers can set up and begin using a blog within their existing hosting package.

The popularity of blogs has risen in recent years, with Technorati ™ currently tracking 70 million blogs. As blogs have entered the mainstream, business blogs are being used to complement a small business' Web site. While a Web site generally provides important information about the organization and its products and services, more often that not -- it's quite static. A business blog allows small and medium-sized businesses to build and maintain a steady stream of communication with customers and prospects.

"Business blogs are a great way for small businesses to open and maintain meaningful dialog with their customers," explains Jeff Grosman, Senior Vice President for Product Marketing & Management with Network Solutions. "Via their blogs, owners can pose questions regarding their products and services and gain real-time customer feedback and insights. This is key because customers and prospects like to know that their opinions matter."

The use of blogging in business is also beneficial because a blog that is updated frequently and is rich with relevant content and links can also help increase the search engine ranking of a business' core Web site. Search engines favor frequent updates, trackbacks (links to a blog from other bloggers) and the navigation structure of blogs. Savvy marketers will make their core Web sites easily accessible from their blog site.

"An active blog gives visitors more reasons to repeatedly visit both the blog and the business Web site. This added exposure can lead to increased traffic, and the increased traffic can increase search engine rankings, which all lead to higher sales for the Website owner," explains Grosman.

Network Solutions offers the WordPress® blogging software. To learn more about the use of blogging in business or to find out how to start a blog for a company, please visit NetworkSolutions.com.

About Network Solutions, LLC

Network Solutions led the domain name registration service and has evolved to become a leading provider of Web solutions. It offers a full range of Web-related services, including Web hosting, web design, e-commerce software, search engine marketing, SSL certificates, e-mail services and domain name registration. Network Solutions is a complete and comprehensive Web Solutions provider that has 27 years of experience of making it affordable and simple for its clients to build and manage an online presence. For more information on these offerings, please visit networksolutions.com.