You need to blog for your business, you want to blog for your business. So how do you blog for your business?

First things first, figure out what you want to say, and who you want to say it to.

Unless of course, you’re Northwest Airlines, and think it’s a good idea to tell your employees to go dumpster diving.

But assuming you are ready to put just a little bit more thought into this, let’s get started. Firstly, don’t worry about length. Some blogs are short; some are long. You can really go either way, whenever you want.

Take note, however: this only applies to blogs, not cars, especially now that automotive black boxes are here.

But the nice thing about blogs is that the format is defined by the blogger. Therefore, many blogs are by nature somewhat informal. The tone is not intended to be corporate-speak, but conversational. As formal as email minus 5 is a pretty good estimate.

(A pretty sad estimate is the latest prediction on how much longer than previously expected it’s going to be before the ozone repairs itself. I can already hear the blog keyboards hammering away about this one…)

However, don’t confuse informal with unprofessional: whoopsie Swedish TV! Make sure your comments are relevant to your audience. You may be offering new information about a product, or simply putting current events into a context that makes sense for what you’re doing.

In the case of AOL, reassuring the world that you’ve revamped your internal privacy & secuity policies.

Either way, you’re writing for an audience, so be sure to respect them.

Speaking of professional, know any young entrepreneurs who could benefit from some positive ink in BusinessWeeek? The magazine has put out the call for nominees for America’s Best Young Entrepreneurs. Make the cut and you’ll have plenty to blog about!

Not surprisingly, the nuts and bolts of blogs are a lot like those of forums. Lots to choose from. And better yet, lots of good stuff to choose from.

1. Blogger: Blogger is a great place to start. It’s free, it’s easy — and pretty much every body has heard of it! Great place to get started with a blog, and even includes prelimary templates. It doesn’t make customization easy, though, which is important when it comes to branding.

2. Movable Type: Like Blogger very well known. Unlike Blogger, not as easy for the novice to get going with right away. Requires some technical savvy, but also makes up for it with a vast array of customization features. Pricing is also not free, ranging from $50 to more than $200.

3. TypePad: Offers more customization than Blogger, but less than Movable Type. Costs more than Blogger (barely), but less (a lot) than Movable Type. A great solution because it is easy to grow with. May take a little more start up time intially, but can pay off with features that become desirable later on.

4. WordPress: The Avanquest choice! Wordpress offers an excellent user interface, and very easy to comprehend layout. Other advantages include cost (free!) and the fact that it offers a very rich-feature set, including comment moderation. This cannot be overstated: the writing interface is super easy to edit and modify. Get’s our vote!

5. Yahoo!: Very new to the blog-o-space is Yahoo!’s free solution. Combining branding elements well-known to Yahoo! users, but now incorporating a bloggable tool as well as MySpace features like “Friends,” Yahoo! is making inroads with what looks like a cool tool. While perhaps not the long term solution for a business, a great place to experiment with a blog that is user-friendly and fun. Worth poking around on.

There are others, of course…lots of others! But this short list of well-knowns should help get the ball rolling for any small business interested in making blogging a reality, and bringing in more customers from your site.

Blog on!

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Need to get your business off the ground? Need to keep it there? Grow My Business offers helpful resources and ideas for any entrepreneur, and Avanquest is the one-stop shop for any small or home business software needs.