Many business owners know they should be blogging. There are plenty of reasons to do so (particularly in a recession) as discussed by Jennifer Laycock here:
Google is obviously a very well known brand, and it is safe to say it didn’t get that way from blogging. It is probably also safe to say that most of the people who read Google’s blogs are already somewhat familiar with the company. They didn’t provide the model for making money online with blogs.
But…
Looking at how Google uses blogs does make for some excellent examples of how a business can use blogs to bolster their online presence and engage their customers.
The Branches
Google has individual blogs for many of the company’s properties. For example, there is one for AdWords, one for AdSense, one for Google Mobile, one for Google Chrome, one for Google Analytics, one for Gmail, one for YouTube, and so on and so forth.
Of course, not all businesses have the number of properties that Google does, but for businesses offering a number of products or services, this is a strategy worth considering.
Updating and Informing
Now, having all of these blogs is pointless if they are not updated, and Google for the most part keeps these updated fairly regularly. You’re not going to see a new post every single day on every single blog of Google’s, but they are generally kept up with.
Because of this (at least partially), people know they can go to Google’s blogs to find the latest news on product updates. They are reliable sources for company info.
Interesting
Google products are interesting to people right from the get go, just because they come from Google, and this is a company that has a large impact on the daily lives of many, many, people. So it is true they have that going for them.
Still, Google blogs generally find ways make posts interesting beyond just that. One way that I often see them do this on a variety of blogs is to highlight the usefulness of the product being talked about.
They offer tips. They provide examples of scenarios where certain aspects of their products would be of general use to the user. They often provide videos and images showing just what they’re talking about.
The Go-To Place
While Google has so many blogs for their different products, they also have one central blog, the Official Google Blog, which ordinarily provides the biggest announcements the company has to make. Posts here are often cross posted with Google’s other niche blogs, but if you want to know generally the biggest things that Google is up to, you can go there.
Google also has a directory of all its blogs, so users can easily find any of them from one location.
Ways to Keep Users Updated
Google offers more than one way for readers to stay updated with new blog posts across its entire network of blogs. There are RSS feeds, a standard feature for blogs, but on Google blogs, there is normally a prominent link to subscribe to the feed.
Google also has a Blogs Gadget that you can add to your iGoogle homepage. This is another way to bring new posts right to you.
What I’m Getting At
The point of this article is not to talk to go on about how great Google is. It’s to point out some of the things they’re doing that make their blogs worth reading. This is a problem many businesses continue to face. People just don’t care about reading their blogs. So perhaps it would pay to step back and look at a business whose blogs people really do want to read.
