You’ve decided that your business website should have a blog. You’ve never blogged before, or have only had a personal blog on a hosted service such as Blogspot. Here are a few things you shouldn’t do, or think twice about before doing.

1. Post paid reviews.
If you are a business selling products, it just seems cheap to be pimping yourself out for someone else’s products. Feel free to mention other products, if they’re relevant to your blog’s topic set. Also, if your business is small (number of employees), it’s a matter of personal preference whether or not to use an Amazon affiliate code if you occasionally mention a book you highly recommend.

2. Run advertising.
Okay, let’s qualify that. Many webware (web application) sites that give away free access often have Google AdSense ads present. That’s their sole source of income, until they get purchased or find VC capital. Small businesses that sell their other companies’ products also occasionally have advertising, both graphic and pay-per-click. But if you are selling only your own products, think twice about publishing ads. Companies selling services, on the other hand, seem to be able to get away with sometimes selling ads. Ultimately, it’s a personl decision.

3. Fake your comments.
Don’t be like Whole Foods CEO John Mackey, who repeatedly insulted a competitor in web forums under the pseudonym “Rahodeb”. This sort of thing applies to your business blog as well. Coach employees to also be transparent about their commenting, if they are representing you.

4. Get angry at insulting comments.
You can decide to turn off comments and allow only trackbacks, but that doesn’t mean you won’t be subject to insults. The Internet has become the great leveller of society in many ways, and that means that people free to be insulting online at anything they don’t agree with – something they might never do in person. You are not going to change that. Be diplomatic in your responses, or hire a professional writer to do the blogging for you.

5. Skip attribution.
The blogosphere is all about forming relationships. That means that if you are borrowing a concept or idea from someone, you should give them attribution by linking back to a specific URL on their site. Even if you came up with something on your own, it doesn’t hurt to pick a couple of articles on other sites where they’ve discussed something similar recently. Linking out is actually a good idea. In a similar vein, don’t steal content. It’s just wrong in so many ways.