A blog can help your business grow, and this post will help you get started. First, you’ll learn why a blog makes sense for your business, then get six early blogging steps to take.
A Business Blog Helps You Cement Your Status as a Thought Leader
Thought leadership sets you apart from competitors. It helps people see that you have interesting, relevant perspectives and could help them conclude it’s worthwhile to do business with you. A recent study about thought leadership polled enterprises in the United Kingdom, Germany, and France to get their opinions about thought leaders.
It found that 54 percent of European organizations incorporate thought leadership into their vetting practices when evaluating new companies. Moreover, 46 percent said thought leadership prompted them to reach out to a previously unconsidered supplier to engage in the bidding process.
You can showcase thought leadership in several ways, such as by delivering a keynote address at a conference or appearing on TV to give an interview. But, displaying thought leadership through a blog gives a consistent reach to a broader audience.
A Blog Could Encourage People to Spend More Time on Your Website
Company representatives regularly analyze website stats and determine how to make improvements. If your blog has relevant, engaging material, it could make people spend more time on your site than they otherwise would.
You can also increase the likelihood of that happening by strategically linking to blog posts within other online content. For example, if you sell a specialty water bottle for hiking, you might link to a blog post about how to clean the bottle within the product description.
You Can Use It as a Distribution Method for Company Materials
A 2019 study from GrowthBadger compared the techniques by high-income bloggers and lower-income ones. It found that 53 percent of bloggers earning more than $50,000 per year from their blogs offered freebies in exchange for the email addresses of their blog subscribers.
If you’re looking for a practical way to increase the traction of a recently published e-book or white paper, giving it to blog subscribers could be a smart move. Another interesting statistic from the GrowthBadger research was that 45 percent of those polled who earn more than $50,000 through blogging use a blog to sell a product or service. That means you’re in good company by choosing to launch a blog.
Now, let’s go over six steps for starting a blog
1. Determine What You Want to Accomplish
It’s crucial to solidify the goals for your business blog. Otherwise, it’ll be prohibitively difficult to determine if strategies are working well.
For example, you might want to drive leads with your blog, use it to boost search engine visibility or improve customer engagement. Once you settle on the purposes of the business blog, it’ll be easier to measure success.
2. Come Up With Topics That Interest Your Audience
Your blog is the ideal place to deliver content to readers that match their needs. Brainstorming topics might seem intimidating in these early stages, but it’s a necessary step. Start by thinking about why people visit your website.
For example, FDM4 is a provider of enterprise software for the apparel sector and other industries. It caters to customers through a blog filled with posts with topics ranging from choosing an online shopping cart to reducing inventory errors.
You can use customer feedback as one method of finding topics for your blog. Or, browse the things your competitors cover on their blogs and use those subjects as jumping-off points.
3. Choose Your Blog’s Design Theme
Your blog’s appearance should ideally complement the way your website looks. Fortunately, using WordPress for your blog lets you pick from a wide variety of beautiful and professional-looking themes.
If you have trouble choosing between several options, show all of the possibilities on your shortlist to at least a few internal team members or other people you trust. The feedback they give could help you reach a more confident decision. Also, don’t get too stressed about the way your blog looks now. If you end up not liking the results, it’s easy to go with a different theme later.
4. Create a Practical Posting Schedule
People have various beliefs about the optimal amount of posts to publish on a blog per week or month. Instead of figuring out a number, consider that reliability is more important than frequency. For example, it’s better to consistently publish one post per week than to write three in one week and then have a month-long gap before providing new content.
Figure out how often you can feasibly post based on current resources. When Buffer increased its blog readership to more than 1.5 million people, one of the things it did was decrease the number of posts published per week. It realized that as the post numbers went up, quality often declined. When making a schedule, allow enough time to research topics, too. Buffer representatives plan blog content up to six weeks in advance.
5. Select Your Blogging Voice
Your blog should be an extension of your company’s brand. That’s why it’s essential to write with the appropriate voice. That may mean sticking with a purely professional tone or being lighthearted from time to time. Once you settle on a blogging voice, it’s wise to create a style guide so that all writers will adhere to it.
6. Promote Your Blog Via Social Media
For example, you could write a Facebook post that says “Launching tomorrow” and provide a direct link to the blog. Then, as you add more content, use social media to ensure people know about new posts.
Once you’ve handled the steps above and have a functioning blog, it’s time to promote it on social media. You’ll initially want to advertise that the blog exists.
Go Forth and Blog
Being a business blogger may feel intimidating, but it’s within your reach. These six tips can help you lay a strong foundation for success.
Kayla Matthews
Kayla Matthews is a WordPress blogger and independent writer. She’s done freelance work for Digital Trends, The Week, Website Magazine and VICE. To read more posts from Kayla, visit her blog, Productivity Theory.
The post Why Start a Business Blog? And How to Do It appeared first on Torque.
