Business plays growing role in blogging world

While only a few years ago, blogging was seen as a tool for private individuals with hobbies, good writing skills or with stories to tell, these days blogs are just as important for businesses of all sizes, and blogging platforms are catching on. Twitter, a micro-blogging site, announced this week that it would start offering a brand new service geared towards businesses, which would allow companies to obtain detailed statistical information and analysis on their readers. This service, however, would come at an extra fee and would become available by the end of the year.

WordPress, the most popular blogging tool, already offers detailed statistics for bloggers and at no additional cost. Businesses that run blogs should aim to read through these numbers on a regular basis, as they provide revealing information on their clients, what might interest customers, at what time of day most people visit the site and how they get there in the first place. For example, businesses with products that appeal primarily to the working population may find that many of their clients log on from work during weekdays. This means that it may be best to time the publication of blog posts accordingly—namely, from Monday to Friday during daytime hours. Google News tends to index these within 60 minutes of their posting, so publishing them at the right time would maximize the number of visitors.

On the other hand, websites that appeal to stay-at-home mothers, pensioners or students should consider posting articles in the evenings, as well as on weekends. WordPress allows for bloggers to post-date their articles and the system will automatically publish it at the requested time.

Whether Twitter’s new business tool is worthwhile for companies remains to be seen, but it is certain that firms should pay attention to the statistical analysis offered by WordPress. In fact, those who also Twitter users will be able to track how many of their “followers” are enticed to visit the actual blog and which articles they find the most appealing.