How to Set up Your Business Blog
Two million small businesses in the UK don’t have websites, which means they aren’t utilising the power of an effective business blog either.
Not only are business blogs an ideal way to educate your audience, but they are also one of the most effective and affordable marketing methods available.
Here we will dive deeper into the benefits of a business blog, and some solid tips on how to get yours up and running to maximise outreach. Read on to learn more.
Why Start a Business Blog?
Starting is a business blog that serves a multitude of purposes, which is why you’ll find that so many business sites feature them.
Some of these major benefits include:
• Better Exposure: One of the top reasons businesses turn to blog is to increase their exposure! With the opportunity to regularly include fresh content, businesses can really integrate some strong SEO principals into their marketing plan. We will touch more on how to utilise these SEO methods later on.
• Be Established as an Expert: Potential customers want to know that a business is backed by strong knowledge and experience. Your blog is the perfect platform to establish yourself as an industry expert.
• Build Strong Customer Relationships: Customers want your storey just as much as they want your product. They also want to feel like they are turning to someone they actually know for products and services. A blog allows you to build a lengthened, trusting relationship with your customers
Add in the fact that these benefits come at minimal investment cost, and you can see why so many businesses are utilising the power of a blog.
Know Your Audience
Knowing your audience is the first step to setting up a business blog and choosing it’s an underlying topic. Consider your blog to be a type of compromise with your audience, you’ll want to be blogging about subjects that are both relevant to your industry and subjects that are important to them.
This means knowing your audience well enough to know what kind of information are they seeking. What’s keeping them up before they go to bed at nite? What are their daily pain points? Most importantly, how can your industry help?
Have a Unique Voice
Now that you’ve established a strong subtopic for your business blog, you’ll want to have a unique voice to pair it with. With the popularity of business blogs, there’s a strong likelihood that someone is already writing about the subject you’ll be writing on. Which is why it’s important to know what sets your voice apart.
So, take time to consider what makes your voice unique.
Do you have an intriguing job title or business background that gives more merit to your content? Have you personally overcome the same struggles that your audience is currently facing and can draw from that experience in your writing? Dive in and find your own voice.
Teach Don’t Sell
At the end of the day, whether you’re offering a product or a service, businesses need to sell to stay in business. Easy tiger, there’s a time and place to do this and it’s not all over your blog. If a blog comes off as being too “salesy” it won’t be long before your reader exits out of there.
This doesn’t mean you can’t promote your product at some point in the blog, and we will get to the best way to do that. But for now, focus on creating quality content that’s both informational and useful.
Include a Strong Call to Action
Once you’ve researched, organised, and created a well-written blog on a subject of value it’s time to get in your mini-promo on your own products and services.
Often, this is best done thru a call of action in the conclusion of your blog. That’s right, the portion of tooting your own horn should be reserved to the last line or two.
Make a strongly suggested action to your reader such as signing up for your newsletter or chequing out a specific product and be sure to include a link with it so they know where to go.
Plan, Plan, Plan
Blogging can seem like an easy venture, in the beginning. But give it time and you’ll find the idea well dries up pretty fast. Once the ideas go, businesses tend to produce content that’s off-topic, unengaging, and outright boring.
To avoid this from happening, be sure to have a strong content calendar mapped out for yourself ahead of time that covers at least the title of the blog. This will also help you plan your content around Holidays, upcoming sales events or new product launches.
Utilise Keywords
Did you know your business blog also holds the potential to increase your search ranking, that’s one of the benefits of blogging for marketing? Thru the right SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) methods you can make it easier for potential customers to find your site while searching online. If you’re new to SEO, it’s important to remember there is a slight learning curve.
Algorithms change frequently, as do the rules of SEO, so you’ll want to do some research before getting started. However, in it’s most basic terms, you can tap into SEO with your blog by simply utilising the right keywords into each of your successful blogs posts.
Where to Place Your Blog
You’ve worked hard on your blog, so why keep it hidden? Your blog should be easy for your audience to find and navigate thru. Many businesses are tempted to create an entirely different website for their blog and to give it a different name. However, this is defeating the purpose.
Your blog will be driving traffic to your site so it’s important to keep it on your site. Be sure that there’s a link to your blog on your navigation bar, and consider linking part of your homepage to your blog as well.
How to Get Your Blog Seen
Too often businesses write great blog pieces and fail to take advantage of their quality content! Your blog works as an incredible base for the rest of your marketing efforts. Here are some ideas on how to utilise your content to its maximum potential and increase its visibility:
• Pull a quote from your blog and make a relevant but beautiful graphic for it. Share the graphic on your social media platforms along with a link for the blog.
• If your blog comes in the form of a “listicle” or a “how-to” you can easily transfer this information into a brief and eye-catching infographic that can be shared on sites like Pinterest.
• Contact your tribe! Many businesses believe email marketing is dead, yet it continues to be one of the most effective forms of customer outreach. Write a brief paragraph introducing the blog and why it’s worth chequing out and send it to your subscribers.
It’s important to remember that blog views won’t roll in overnight. Even with the right publicity behind it, it may take some time for traffic to ramp up when you create a business blog.
Utilising Your Website to its Fullest
A well-executed business blog is the best way to help you get the most out of your website.
Remember, business websites don’t have to be flat, stagnant, information about your business. With the right design and features, your business site can be a place your audience wants to return to again and again.
If you need help on starting a small business blog and getting your business site to where it should be, check out our website design and development services.
