Blog your way to business success
Every day, more and more business owners are finding out that business blogging can do wonders for their websites and their businesses. But that success requires more than launching a blog and publishing posts.
A successful business blog is strategically planned and 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. Read more
Business blogging for beginners
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. Read more
When you’re business blogging, you need all the skills that every other blogger uses to establish a successful blog, plus you need a strategy to promote your business.
But if you get too caught up in the business end of things, you might find yourself skimping on some very basic business blogging strategies.
Let’s get back to basics and look at a few simple rules of good blogging. These blog tips will help you build a better blog whether you’re blogging for business, as a profession, or as a hobby.
1. Never make your readers work to access your content. Avoid breaking up one post over several pages unless it’s a series and you’re publishing each stand-alone section on a different day.
2. The same goes with verification codes and comments. Comments benefit your blog, and they are your readers’ gifts to you. Don’t add extra steps to the comment process by forcing readers to enter verification codes. If you have spam problems, get the Akismet plugin (it absolutely works!).
3. Full feed RSS! I recently had to clean out my RSS subscriptions because there were simply too many to keep up with – and guess which were the first to go? Partial feeds. Besides, they defeat the whole purpose of RSS, which is for readers to get content in one convenient location without clicking all over the place.
4. Quality assurance testing. Check your site for functionality, and check it from different browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome, and Safari). Also, review your site on a Mac and a PC. You might be surprised by how different one site can look across various browsers and platforms.
5. Clickable header. Most WordPress blog themes include this feature. Visitors generally expect that if they click on your logo or header, they’ll be taken to your home page. Keep your site navigation consistent with standards by making sure your header is clickable and takes the browser back to the home page.
6. Website copywriting. If you’re business blogging, your blog is probably integrated with your business site, but what if your blog is your business? Make sure that your blog posts as well as the pages on your site (about page, contact page, FAQ) all have solid, compelling web content writing.
7. Subscription options. Include at least two options for subscribing: RSS and email. Lots of people still don’t know how to use RSS, so it’s essential that you include the email option. Make your subscription options clearly visible and test them to make sure they work properly (be your own subscriber!). Bonus tip: Use Feedburner!
Some of these business blogging practices may seem like more trouble than they’re worth. You don’t have the time to dig into your code and figure out how to turn comment verification off. Or, you can’t be bothered with making your header clickable because you’ve got too much to do. Your RSS feed shows excerpts and you’re not quite sure how to change it to full feed, so you simply ignore it.
Here’s the thing — the more minor annoyances readers bump into on your blog, the more likely they are to unsubscribe or stop reading. If your content’s great, a verification form might be forgiven (just don’t sit around wondering why you get so few comments). But comment verification plus a header that’s not clickable — these things just build up and suddenly your reader is saying, “Why do I come to this blog? It’s such a hassle.” Then poof! They’re gone.
Business blogging might mean you have to focus heavily on ensuring your content relates to your business offerings, but neglecting the basics of good blogging will only come off as amateurish and unprofessional – and that’s not good for business.
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?
