 |
You have a slick business
website and have taken the time to create a few social media accounts for your
company. All of these things are marvelous! But do you have a business blog?
You may have never started
a blog because you thought creating and writing posts would be too much work.
And as a blogger I understand that -- blogging is difficult and at times
it’s time consuming. Also: No matter how great of a blog manager you are it can
take a long time to find your audience and for your blog to find its voice.
But there are many
benefits of business blogging:
- Blogging allows your employees to discuss the aspects of the company they enjoy.
- If you’re blogging (and if you’re the president or owner of the company you should be), the research for future blog posts allows you to easily stay current with trends in the industry.
- The more true and fact-filled things you write the more authority you give your business.
- Blogging allows your customers to easily interact with you and your business associates.
-Source: “5 Reasons Your Business Should Be Blogging,” by Marcus Sheridan, from Social Media Examiner
So, just how do you
successfully start your company’s blog? According to the article, “How to Plan Your Business Blog,” by Amanda DiSilvestro,
it’s important to plan your blog before you begin writing or promoting your
services via your new, shiny blog. To make an effective blog, consider the
following:
- “Who is my target audience, and what do they want to read?
- Am I going to allow guest bloggers on the blog?
- How often should I post to the blog?
- How can I track its success? What will I consider success?”
-Source: DiSilvestro,
Social Media Today
DiSilvestro also provides
some easy-to-follow steps that will help new bloggers plan their blogs:
Know your readers: You
need to know who your audience is before you start to create content. Attract
new readers (aka customers) to your blog by conducting some simple SEO keyword
research. “Utilize keyword research to determine what a lot of people are searching
for on Google,” DiSilvestro said. Learn more about keyword research over atCopyblogger.
Choose a snappy name: Name
your blog something that will make your current customers smile and also will
attract new readers. Also: Make blog titles intriguing. Starting titles with, “5
Ways to…,” or “How to,” will make your blogs more clickable.
Easy communication: Link
to related articles and to your company’s social media sites often. Also:
Include an “opt-in offer that readers can fill out if they want to contact you
about more information,” DiSilvestro said.
Update often: Recruit
employees to write blogs and come up with blog topics. And if there’s no one at
your company who wants to write, consider hiring a freelance writer, or asking
guest bloggers to contribute to your content. “Generally you should try to
produce most of your content in-house at the start so that readers can see you
really know your stuff. When you do allow the occasional guest blogger,”
DiSilvestro said.
Don’t push yourself too
hard: Posting once a week is enough, but two to three posts per week is ideal.
“The more content you have the easier it will be to promote that blog; not to
mention the more chances you have to really ramp up your SEO (blogs are an
excellent way to improve the SEO of your website),” DiSilvestro said.
Part 2 of this discussion
will examine how people with existing business blogs can improve their blogs
and attract more customers.
No comments:
Post a Comment