7 Tips on creating a business blog that works!

It is now widely accepted that blogging is good for the health of your business. However, if you are going to put the time and effort into writing a business blog, you may as well make it the best it can be by starting off with research, a plan and a commitment to blog yourself or via a third party on a regular basis. 

Tip 1:  Mission statement

• who’s your target audience
• their interest
• what will be the outcome for your target audience ie by reading your blog, will this answer what they’re looking for?

People can tell when a company’s motive is to help rather than just to sell. Find ways to help your audience through your blog and they’ll keep coming back. 

Tip 2:  Inspiration from other bloggers

First of all, get inspiration from other blogs especially if you’re blogging for the first time. Start by finding a blog role model and how their blogs are constructed but also identify poor blogs so you can see what not to do. By doing this research you will be able to figure out the best way to present your blog and to inspire or grab audience attention. Check websites of other companies and search for their blogs. Obviously a company in the same industry as you is a key starting point.

Note that some company blogs don’t come under the title “blog” but under news, articles or updates. 

Tip 3:  Match Your Marketing and Blogging Goals

What are your marketing goals? What are your blogging goals? Blogging can help you achieve these marketing goals: 

• Demonstrate your expertise and/or thought leadership in a specific industry or specialty.
• Educate/motivate/inform your audience.
• Gain wider exposure for your business.
• Build trusting, long-term relationships with customers, prospective customers and your business community.
• Determine which marketing goals are most important to your company, and see how you can use blogging to achieve them. Add the above goals (and any others) to your hybrid marketing/blogging plan.

Choose a number of categories that address relevant topics of discussion in your business while keeping your mission statement in mind. Note that your category should be something you and your team have knowledge and experience in. 

Tip 5:  Blogging Schedule

Check your role model blogs to see how often they post new content. All companies are different on how frequently they post new content. Set a reasonable schedule that you can follow at least to start with and increase the number of times you post when you feel comfortable. Start off by posting at least once a week or if you’re uncomfortable. 

Tip 6:  How to Write a Blog Post

Brainstorm ideas based on the topic and/or title in your calendar or a new idea that’s come up for one of your existing themes (categories). Sketch out a rough outline of the post, including possible subheadings and main points.

Fill in your outline. 

• Research your topic online to add relevant links, facts, stats and photos to your post.
• Polish and finish the draft of your post, including the photo(s), as well as all of the promotional text it needs (i.e., the post excerpt/summary) and teaser messages you’ll use on each social media platform.
• Proofread your post for typos, grammatical errors and readability.
• Load your article text, links and photos to your blog platform. Include keywords from the article in the image “alt” text, optimize the post for search engines and schedule the post to publish on the right day at the right time.
• Promote your post on social media and notify anyone you mentioned in the post. Generate engagement as you monitor and reply to responses, comments and shares.

Set up your blogging schedule a month in advance especially when you are just starting out. At the beginning of each month, you can review that month’s content and then add the next month into your schedule. 

Tip 7:  Monitor and Evaluate Your Results

The only way to know if your blogging is working is to monitor whether you’re meeting your business goals. Here’s something to think about in determining which measurements are most meaningful: 

• If your goal is to demonstrate your expertise and/or thought leadership, you should be receiving requests for media and speaking opportunities.
• If your goal is to build trusting, long-term relationships, you should see a rise in subscriptions.
• If your goal is to generate new leads, you should be booking new clients or selling products.
• If your goal is to gain wider exposure, you should see an increase in blog comments, as well as shares, likes and comments on social media.

You may not be able to directly attribute these increases to one specific post or even blogging in general, but there are ways to quantify the benefits of blogging. Track important blog metrics like visitors, page views and social shares. As part of your blogging plan, schedule time to collect and analyze these measurements, and figure out how you might tweak your blogging strategy accordingly.

Blogging may or may not sound easy but most companies find the discipline required to source content and stick to a regular posting schedule challenging. In variability this function is outsourced or delivered in partnership with a third party who is expert in understanding to industries of your business. These are the companies that become blogger converts and are reaping the benefits of better and better marketing R.O.I.