Have you ever thought about adding a blog to your business website? The benefits of business blogging can be great, but there are obstacles that you must overcome, problems you must solve, and challenges you must face before you can launch a business blog.
For starters, you need to have a solid content development plan. What topics will your blog cover? Just news and announcements about your business or industry? What else could you possibly write about on a business blog?
Fortunately, there are plenty of areas to explore in terms of topics. The main ingredient you need for any blog is a good writer – someone who can produce compelling content. A clever and talented writer can make the driest subject in the world juicy and interesting.
Business Blogging
Business blogging is really no different than most other blogging endeavors. Business bloggers are often working to grow their subscriber base, readership, and traffic. Businesses are looking for ways to grow their customer base and doing so through an effective online presence can be highly beneficial.
Business blogging provides a number of opportunities for improving your online presence and increasing your online success. You can grow traffic to your site, gain rank on search engines, and publish quality content that other websites will link to.
But how can you also leverage your blog to grow your business, increase sales, and connect with your customers?
Five Business Blogging Ideas
From lengthy blog posts that feature your products and services and describe them in great detail to shorter posts that showcase photos or videos that depict your merchandise in action, business blogging offers ample opportunities for sharing news and information about your business offerings. Here are just a few ideas for how to use your blog to promote your business:
1. Products and Services
Write posts with images and descriptions of your products and services to help people better understand what you offer. Be sure to include a mix of newly launched products along with your core or staple products. And don’t forget to highlight the benefits of your offerings!
2. Customer Service
Every business has tons of stories about customer service. Good service, bad customers, and vice versa. Use business blogging as showcase to demonstrate how your business has helped customers. Offer a question-and-answer format that invites customers to send in questions, which you then answer on your blog. Or, encourage customers to send in brief letters or testimonials and post these on your blog.
3. Specials and Discounts
A blog is one of the best places to inform customers about specials or discounts that you’re offering. You can design promotions especially for your blog readers or subscribers, or you can offer open specials and simply promote them on your blog.
4. Features and Benefits
Do more than describe your products and services. Explain the features they boast and the benefits they offer for those who use them. A business blog is a great place to go into greater detail regarding how your product or service will improve people’s lives and solve their problems. Use examples. Tell stories. Compel people to buy.
5. Multimedia
You can post a wide range of media on your blog – images, audio, video, and text. This means there’s no limit to the content you can create and share on your blog. Did you recently do a radio spot or TV commercial? Make sure you post it on your blog. Have you run an ad in the local paper? Post it.
Blogging for Business
Once you sit down and start brainstorming the material you can share through business blogging, you’ll be surprised at just how much fodder for blogging a business actually provides. There are great benefits to be had through business blogging, so what are you waiting for?
Business blogging isn’t a fast or easy road to success. You have to master the writing, grasp the technology, and command your audience. Upload images and download plugins. Moderate comments and manage posts. It’s a ten-man job, there’s only two hands on the helm, and chances are they both belong to you.
If you’re lucky, you’ve got a partner or an assistant and you can spread the workload around a little. If you have a big budget, you can hire it out. Otherwise, it’s all yours. So you grease up and get down to business churning out blog posts and moderating comments like a freight train barreling down a steep, slippery slope.
And what a slippery slope it is. I know, you’ve got your hands full. With a business to run and a blog to maintain, who has time for the details? But there a few core essentials that every blogger should master, even if business blogging is simply a means for you to drive your online marketing efforts.
1. Master WordPress
Do you just log in, write a post, hit publish, and then go about your merry business? WordPress needs your attention. After all, it houses your blog. Like any home, it requires care and maintenance. A few quick tips:
- Always stay upgraded to the latest version of WordPress. Otherwise, stuff might break and your blog or website will not be secure (in other words, a hacker could get in).
- Fill in those fields. The tags and categories aren’t there for show. Make sure you don’t have a bunch of uncategorized posts and use your tags for Google’s sake.
- Check your dashboard. Don’t you want to know who’s linking to you? Don’t you think you should head over to their place and show a little love? Okay, if you’re a big shot blogger, maybe not. But if you’re a big shot blogger, why are you reading these tips? Plus, your dashboard provides a summary of how many posts and comments you’ve acquired to date, stats you should be aware of.
2. Embrace Plugins
Don’t neglect your plugins. There’s a reason a little blurb pops up to let you know that your plugins require maintenance. When you see that blurb, it means your plugins are jumping up and down, waving their arms in the air and yelling “Over here! We need your help!”
If you’re using the latest version of WordPress (see number one above), upgrading your plugins takes about two clicks and just as many seconds.
Don’t have plugins? Get some immediately. They’re there to serve a purpose – to make your blog run more efficiently and effectively. My favorites are: All in One SEO Pack and of course, the plugin nobody can live without – Akismet. Actually, there are a lot more but that’s a whole ‘nother post.
3. Track Traffic
If you don’t know how many people are visiting your blog, then how can you know whether it’s bringing in more business? Knowing how many visitors you’re getting on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis is how you will determine whether your business blogging efforts are paying off.
Some key stats to check:
- Unique visitors – how many individuals visited your site
- Pageviews – how many pages of your site people looked at
- Top landing pages – how people are entering your site
- Referring sites – who is sending traffic your way
- Time on site – how long people are hanging around
Where you do get this information? There are several options for tracking traffic, but I prefer Google Analytics (it’s free and easy to use).
Make sure you always keep the purpose and goal of your website and blog in mind when you analyze your stats. Lots of traffic won’t do you any good if your visitors aren’t buying whatever it is that you’re selling. In other words, don’t be misled by hoards of traffic.
4. Draw Traffic
The other day a friend and I were having a little chat about our blogs and when she complained about her statistics I asked her what she was doing to draw traffic. Her response: “What do you mean?”
I’ve said it before. I’ll say it now and probably again later: If you build it, they will come, but first you have to tell them about it.
If nobody knows about your website, how can you expect them to visit? If the only keyword you’re ranking for on Google is your name and you’re not famous (yet), how do you expect people to find your blog? The opportunities for drawing traffic are limitless but first you’ve got to make it a priority. Whether you use an ad campaign, social media, or word of mouth, you’re going to have to put a little effort into attracting a crowd.
5. Inform, Educate, and Entertain
None of this matters if your content fails to tickle readers where it counts. Every single person with an internet connection could visit your site but if the content isn’t compelling, all that traffic won’t do you one bit of good. A decent design helps and a spectacular one might push you over the top, but nothing beats good writing. This is especially true for business blogging because readers expect professionalism in a business blog.
Start by planning out your posts in advance. Schedule some brainstorming sessions so you have a nice big pile of ideas for topics. Then, write some killer headlines. Make sure your content has value – offer insider tips, free but valuable information.
Don’t forget to establish your voice. That would also be the voice of your company, which is one part of its image. Are you clever and dry? Is your company image gritty or sleek? Develop a voice that is in line with your brand. And if you don’t have the time, skill, or interest, then hire a professional writer to do it for you.
Business Blogging with Due Diligence
When it comes to business blogging, there’s a never-ending list of tasks to complete. Even though these are the essentials, they’re easy to neglect and often go unattended by small business owners and hobby bloggers who get caught up in other, distracting activities. Sure, there’s a lot more you can do for your blog and for your entire website, but if you don’t stay on top of the core action items, those extras won’t matter a whole lot. The pro bloggers know this and tend to their blogs with due diligence. You should too.
So, you have a small business and you’re thinking about adding a blog to your website. You’ve heard that a blog can help your business attract new customers while building loyalty among existing customers. And you’re right; business blogging is a great way to grow your business online.
But blogging is a world unto itself. Think of your blog as a house on the web. Other blogs dealing with topics that are similar or relevant to yours make up your neighborhood. Like all houses, your blog needs to be carefully planned and maintained. And if you want to be a successful member of your community, you’ll have to connect with your neighbors.
Like a home, a blog is an investment. You can invest dollars by hiring a professional blogger to manage and maintain your blog or you can invest your own time and to learn how to do it yourself.
The Rough Guide to Business Blogging
This guide is for small business owners who want to explore business blogging as a way to grow their online presence. The list below includes basic elements to help you get started blogging. It’s by no means an exhaustive list. There is an endless array of blogging activities that you can do to build and grow your blog. But this list does include the bare essentials.
Check Out the Neighborhood
Start by subscribing to blogs in your niche. Find businesses like yours (some of these will be your competitors) and find businesses that complement yours. If you’re an architect, find blogs about construction. If you’re a hairstylist, find blogs about makeup application. Use an RSS reader or subscribe by email. Then, incorporate blog reading into your daily schedule. This is the single best way to get familiar with business blogging. Watch and learn. And make sure you visit the blogs you read directly so you can check out the features on-site and view the comments.
Draw a Blueprint for Your House
Once you’ve familiarized yourself with blogs in your niche, start putting together a plan for your blog. What topics or issues will you address? Make a list of possible post titles. Write down the categories that you’ll use to organize your posts. Be sure to think about features you want for your blog, such as plugins that make your blog more attractive to readers or that make your blog easier to find on the web. Learn how to use these features to your advantage.
Put Your House on the Map
Once you launch your blog, focus on creating excellent content. Every article you post should be useful to your readers. And make sure you know exactly who your target readers are. What questions do they have? What kind of help or tips do they need? Answer their questions and fulfill their needs. Will you use your blog to reach out to customers? Other professionals in your industry? Are you establishing your expertise and credibility or are you sharing news and information about your service offerings? With business blogging, a healthy mixture of all these approaches will work best.
Hit the Road
Now that you know your way around your neighborhood and have your house fitted with great content, start connecting with other bloggers. Visit those blogs you’ve been reading and make it a point to leave comments. When folks comment on your blog, be sure to reply and then head over to their place to reciprocate. Set up a Facebook page and mention your posts on your Twitter stream. Add a link to your email signature. Tell your friends and colleagues about your blog and be clear about how they can benefit from reading it.
Build Your Community
You’ll start building your community when you’re out on the road promoting your blog. Return to home base every once in a while (be sure to keep those posts coming regularly!) to make sure your visitors are comfortable. Use questions to encourage readers to comment and participate in discussion. Throw a little contest, host a giveaway, and make your home the hottest spot on the block.
Bring it Home
Throughout the business blogging process, you’ll pick up a lot of blogging techniques and strategies simply by observing other bloggers. Notice how they format their posts. Do they use images or video? How does the layout affect you as a reader? What do they blog about? Ask yourself what other bloggers in your neighborhood are doing to be successful and then bring it home so you can succeed too.
Every day, more and more business owners are finding out that business blogging can do wonders for online success. But that success requires more than launching a blog and publishing posts.
A successful business blog is well-planned and built on a strategy, which is executed in a meaningful way.
Before launching a business blog, it’s helpful to understand the benefits that your company can reap through business blogging. Then, you’ll be able to develop a plan specific to your business needs.
Here’s a look at how business blogging can help grow your business and improve your online presence.
Regular Updates for Google Goodness
Nobody except the geniuses at Google knows exactly what makes the world’s most popular search engine tick. The algorithm that determines where a website ranks in the search engine results pages (SERPs) is top secret. What we do know is that Google gives good love to sites that make regular updates as well as sites with lots of inbound links. By making changes to your website and adding to it, you can earn some hearty Google juice and increase your website’s rank. One of the most effective ways to regularly update your site is with a blog.
Linkability
Every time someone links to your website, the Google gods smile upon you. There are many ways to get inbound links. You can launch a bunch of websites and link to yourself. You can trade links with other website owners. You can even pay for links. But nothing works like good old-fashioned organic linkage. To get that, you need to produce content that interests people enough to want to share it. You can easily use a blog to publish content and then promote it by networking with other bloggers and leaving comments on their blogs. Links are one of the foremost ways to draw traffic to your website via business blogging.
Keywords and Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
Unless you have a gargantuan website, there probably aren’t a lot of opportunities for you to plant enough keywords on your site to really gain traffic through popular search terms. Also, keywords can be obvious when they’re packed into a small space, and this renders the text unfriendly to readers. Business blogging provides infinite opportunities to implement keywords on a regular basis, so you can expand your keyword pool and place more keywords throughout your website.
Customer Outreach
The online marketplace is increasingly competitive, so it’s essential for business owners to find innovative ways to communicate with customers. A blog gives you a permanent platform that you can use to talk to your customers. Tell them what you’re offering, how it’s important, and why they should buy it from you. Offer specials and discounts to subscribers. Announce new products and run contests or collect feedback from your readers. This empowers you as a business owner and it also puts some power into the hands of consumers, who appreciate having their voices heard and concerns addressed.
Promote Transparency
The latest trend in politics, pop culture, and business is transparency. Talking about your company’s mission, business philosophy, and professional practices helps build trust and customer loyalty. To practice transparency, you need a way to communicate the inner workings of your business with the public. Business blogging is perfect for that — a blog provides an open forum where you can share information about your operations, policies, and procedures. Some bloggers even publish their revenue information, which is the height of true transparency in business.
Establish Credibility
If you’re practicing transparency by discussing the inner workings of your business on a blog, then you’re also establishing credibility, which is essential for gaining trust among perspective buyers. Trust is especially important online because there’s a lack of face-to-face interaction. There are also tons of snake-oil sites on the web, which strive to sucker buyers with fake or useless products and empty promises. By establishing professional credibility, you can earn trust and loyalty from far more customers.
Publicity and Media Platform
Traditional marketing is expensive. All those brochures, business cards, yellow pages, and newspaper advertisements add up. Marketing online isn’t always free, but it sure can be more cost-effective than doing it the old fashioned way. A blog is a permanent advertisement for your business, a place where you can publish news and announcements, including product launches and specials. You can embed videos and if you’re lucky, one of them will go viral, bringing hoards of hungry consumers to your site.
Professional Online Networking
Businesses need other businesses. Professionals must connect with one another, and blogs are great for networking online. You can interact with other professionals whose products and services complement yours and forge valuable partnerships with them, which can lead to growth and expansion for all parties. Blog networking is a modern phenomenon but a powerful one. Links, blogrolls, and comments all provide ways for business blogging professionals to interact, get to know each other, and develop lasting relationships.
Get Busy Business Blogging
A blog isn’t an endeavor to enter lightly. It takes some planning and there’s a lot to learn. For starters, there’s the blog design and associated technology like plugins and widgets that make a blog more effective and user friendly. Then there’s the strategy involved, plus the challenge of producing relevant, compelling content on a regular basis. In future posts, we’ll be exploring all of these components and many more, so stay tuned.
We’ve already talked about how to lay the groundwork for your web content development by brainstorming. You jotted down all your ideas, did some research, and expanded on those ideas. You looked at the competition and learned more about what your industry is doing in the online marketplace. You took notes and made lists. You asked questions and came up with answers. You went in empty handed and came out with a better understanding of what your online presence should look like.
Once you’ve done your brainstorming, you should have plenty of possibilities for your web content development plan. Maybe you’ve got it scrawled all over a bunch of pieces of scratch paper. Perhaps you used an orderly mind mapping technique or created a PowerPoint presentation.
Take a look at your notes. Those are the seeds that you’ve gathered. Now you need to plant those seeds and make them grow. You have to water and fertilize them, and make sure those seedlings get plenty of sunshine. To do this, you’re going to need a plan. A web content development plan.
The Benefits of Having a Plan
I’m a big fan of planning. If you spend a little time on a plan right now, you can save loads of time later. A good plan will also help you avoid mistakes and bumps in the road because as you build your plan, you’ll naturally contemplate various possibilities and scenarios. You’ll be able to work contingencies into the plan, as well as emergency exits and the notorious plan B.
Running a business is not easy. It takes up a lot of time and energy, especially when you’re just starting out or going through a renovation or expansion. If you don’t write a plan, then you might get caught up in your day-to-day business activities and forget all about the evolution of your online presence. This is especially true if you have a long-term business plan (please tell me you do).
A plan also provides you with a blueprint. There are infinite possibilities on the web and it’s easy to get lost among all the opportunities. If you have a plan, you’ll be able to navigate through your many choices with ease and confidence.
Tips for Web Content Development Planning
Purpose and Priority
I believe that all good plans start with a sense of purpose and priority. Let’s say your first web project will be to redesign your website. You decide to scrap all three or four pages of written content because they are outdated, and you want to get rid of the layout, which is just dated. But you’d like to keep your logo. You decide you need about twenty pages of content, including one page for each separate product that you sell. You also want to get set up on popular social media sites. You’d like to use video as well. You’ve got a big list of big ideas and you can’t wait to see them come alive.
But first you need to step back and decide what matters most. This is how you organize and put things in order: Your website is more important that your social media. Your email marketing campaign is more important than your hopes for creating a viral video. Later, we’ll talk about contingencies, timelines, and budgets. But for now, keep in mind that no matter how hard we work or how carefully we plan, things change. You might get a golden opportunity in a few months and have to postpone some of your content development plans for lack of time (being busy is good, right!). You might have a difficult quarter and have to tighten the budget. You just never know what the future holds. So dream big, but then put your dreams in order.
When you’re dealing with a website, for example, you should definitely give your core pages greater priority. These include your home page, about page, products or services page, and contact page. Four simple pages that every business website should have. Viral videos are all the rage but millions of people post videos every day and there’s no guarantee that yours is going to be a phenomenon. A more reliable marketing strategy should come first. Put things in their proper order. Prioritize, and everything else will follow.
Flexibility
Nothing stresses me out more than a plan that has no flexibility built in. Let’s say you’re a middle manager. You have to get a project to your boss by Friday. Please don’t tell your subordinates that it’s due Friday. You tell them it’s due Thursday. Or better, Wednesday. That gives you some leeway in case anything goes wrong. And things do go wrong. Next year, your budget might be twice what it is this year (or it could be half). Even the very best plans, the ones that are perfectly executed, are subject to reality. And in reality, stuff happens. Unpredictable stuff. So create your plan, but don’t create it out of iron or chisel it into stone. And remember, technology is changing all the time. Be prepared because this year’s blog is next year’s Twitter, and who knows what we’ll be dealing with the year after that?
Timeline
A website doesn’t happen overnight. If you’re starting a brand new business, you’ll want the completion of your website to coincide with the launch of the business itself. If you’re doing a redesign and want to time it for a product or service launch, you’ll need to coordinate your timelines.
The biggest mistake I see small business owners making in the online world is not having any plan at all. The second biggest mistake is no timeline. They’re going to start publishing a newsletter, but when? They’ll update their online profiles, eventually. They’d like to add fresh content to the site. Someday.
Lots of people don’t like committing to a timeline. Well, that’s what flexibility is for. At least with a timeline, you can make some sound guesses about the future of your web content. At the very least, you can create a series of events and ascertain how long each will take and how much time you need between each one. For example, you can allot six weeks to creating a website. You might need two weeks to create an email marketing campaign. You don’t have to glue these projects to the calendar, but you can use a timeline to better understand how long everything will take. This will enable you to align various facets of your entire business.
Budgeting
Smart businesspeople know how to budget. But we just talked about flexibility and the unforeseeable future. The fact that you cannot know for sure what the future holds also means you can’t know for sure what your budget will be in later months or years. The economy is unpredictable, the market is unpredictable, and consumers are getting more fickle by the minute. Hopefully, you’ll have a bigger budget than you hoped for or at least be on track. But we all know how many businesses fail every year (if you don’t know, the answer is this: the vast majority!). And when disappointment comes knocking, the first thing that shrinks is your budget. Some businesses can avoid failure by having a flexible budget, or rather, by having a plan that’s flexible enough to adapt to changing budgets.
You should, however, budget for online marketing on a long-term basis. A lot of small businesses throw a few hundred dollars at a website and then forget about it. Three years later, they remember they have a website and they pay a few hundred more dollars to update it. This is not a healthy cycle. It could be costing the business customers, who are apt to think that if the website is half-baked, the company probably is too. Make sure you have a regular, ongoing budget for online marketing and website maintenance.
Contingencies
A contingency is something that might happen, but there’s no guarantee. It’s a what-if. As a writer, I’m thrilled by what-ifs. Questioning possibility is what drives fiction. It’s also what keeps me up at night. What if the video really does go viral? What if nobody responds to my Facebook page? What if the site becomes an overnight internet sensation; do I have the resources to handle the new business that the site could attract?
When you’re writing a plan, you have to include contingencies. You probably don’t need a lot of them, but contingencies work alongside flexibility. In your plan, you believe that if you build a site and launch a proper marketing campaign, you should be able to increase your current sales by 20%. So you build the site, but it’s drawing more customers than you anticipated. Will you be ready to handle the new business that’s coming in?
Plan B
If your plan doesn’t pan out the way you intended, what are you going to do? Nobody likes thinking about worst-case scenarios, but this is business and the reality is that success is not guaranteed. However, you can minimize your losses by having a solid backup plan in place. And you never know, a good backup plan might lead to another (and more successful opportunity). Let’s say you’re just out of college and want to be a freelance graphic designer. You set up a website and start hustling online. You do okay, but not great. Your designs are awesome, but sales isn’t your thing. A year in, you’ve invested a lot of time and money building your little business. But now, you’re not sure you’re in it for the long haul.
Secondary plans abound in situations like this. You can rework your website, turn it into an online resume and portfolio, and then use it find a regular job (you can always continue freelancing on the side). You can find a partner who specializes in sales and work together to grow the business. You can sell your site (aged websites have value, and aged sites with decent content have even more value — high traffic sites are worth a lot) and get out of the business altogether.
Yes, it sucks when things don’t work out the way we’d hoped. But it’s not the end of the world. If you have a plan B, you’ll be prepared and you’ll get through any major disappointments just fine.
Get Ready to Execute
Planning takes time and effort, but it can prevent unnecessary hassles later. Take some time to brainstorm your vision for your online presence. Then, turn that raw material into an organized plan, one that’s prioritized and that has a clear budget, a tentative timeline, and a lot of flexibility. Include contingencies and a backup plan. Once you get through that planning phase, you’ll be ready to execute. It’s time to start building!
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