Wanna know a secret? Sure, you do! There is a surefire way to help your business grow. It’s not shameless promotion (well, some of it is), and it’s not whoring yourself out to people for too low of a rate. The secret? Blog. About everything. It’s not hard. I’ll give you a perfect example of how and why blogging for your business works.

Let’s use my dear friend Mirella, who creates beautiful wedding flowers, as an example…I know she won’t mind.

Mirella started her floral business in 2008. It was getting steady, but not really taking off the way she wanted. Mirella starting blogging. Religiously. So much so that I’m embarrassed by my puny amount of posts!

So, she blogged. Then she blogged some more. And you know what? She’s still blogging. Mirella writes about things other than flowers. She writes about wedding planners and graphic designers and anything she thinks might interest her clientele. The woman is a blogging machine. She also promotes her newest creations, seasonal flowers, and wedding shows that she’s attended.

To help further boost her traffic and get some qualified leads, Mirella developed a contest for new brides on her blog. The contest has helped her gather incredibly hot leads for new brides who need wedding flowers. And she blogged all about it.

One of the most interesting things I’ve found is how Mirella’s blogging has boosted traffic to my own site. She interviewed the Mad Hatter on her blog and that one post sends tons of traffic to my site. Mirella’s efforts to boost her own traffic are spilling over into the worlds of those she blogs about. What a fabulous way to build business relationships and trust with other business owners! Just fab.

Ok, so it’s not really a secret that blogging works for business, but so many people don’t do it (or slack off, like me) and there’s just no excuse. It’s one of the cheapest, easiest, most effective ways to drive traffic to your website. Let’s not neglect blogging any longer!

So, if you’re not sure how to get started with your blog, it’s best to talk to a *cough* blog designer to find out. Wordpress blogs are pretty simple and straightforward, but you’ll want to host it on your own domain – none of this Wordpress.com stuff. Again, if you’re not sure what this means, I know an awesome Wordpress blog designer who can explain all the technical stuff!

Happy blogging, people!