I'd like to propose this question: What's the best way to use your blog?Before that can be answered, you need to understand some of the different pages on your website and how you might be using your website currently.
Each webpage serves different functions; here are 4 examples:
* A home page is the point of first impression for most people who visit you. Customers usually don't get past ugly home pages unless you provide a niche need.
* Product catalogs show the world what you sell. This is essential for a retail store.
* About Us and Store History pages are how you can portray a professional appearance and humanize your website.
* A "Services" page provide details about the different business services you can provide to people.
When creating your website, the idea is to present yourself and your company in the best possible light. Each of the pages on your site should be well written, edited, spell checked, and provide useful information that the customer might need or directs them to what they need.
For your business, working on a website should be a team effort because it's usually too big of a job for a single person, and it requires a level of professionalism.
The approach to blogging doesn't need to be extremely professional, in fact you should feel free to let your hair down and relax. Only one person is needed to maintain a blog, and that person should feel free to write in their own "voice" or "personality."
No other place on your website affords the opportunity to tell stories about people you've helped, or custom design jewelry jobs you've completed. With social media so common now, you might have an instinct to post a quick sentence or two on Facebook when something interesting happens in the store. On the other hand, instead of posting a short snip on Facebook, that would be a perfect opportunity to write a 400 word story and post it to your blog... then share the blog to Facebook.
Your blog can also be used to talk about holiday events, promotions, new jewelry, or birthstones of the month. I've seen some websites that have a "What's New" section of their site or a "Birthstone of the Month" instead of including that information into a blog. That's no longer a good strategy, and those separated sections of a website should be brought into the blog area.
The typical blogging format has a URL that starts with the word blog. Take a look at most blogging websites and you will see they usually say "domain.com/blog/". In fact it's become a standard practice of online marketing to show your blog at a URL that starts with /blog/. Several of the marketing tools I use have started to look for the /blog/ specific URL as a way to measure ranking and usability.
Think about the functionality of the "What's New" page on your website. You post a new announcement and then next month you might delete it. It's much better to post "What's New" as a blog entry that will not be deleted.
The same holds true for the "Birthstone of the Month." Many jewelers will delete the previous month's birthstone information and replace it with the current month. Instead, you should add the latest birthstone information to the blog.
So to answer the initial question: The best way to use your blog is for anything that's vaguely newsworthy, entertaining, or interesting but you wouldn't want to include it as part of your general sales and marketing.
The next time you have an idea for a new website page, you should ask yourself if the information you want to post is part of a new service or product you will offer, or is it just something that people will find interesting. Business info should get a real page, but all items of curiosity would go into your blog.
