The simple answer to that question is yes – definitely. Blogging is good for businesses and will pay dividends in the long term.
Yes it takes time, effort and commitment, but pound for pound blogging is still one of the most-effective forms of marketing. A good blog can help to build and engage a community, it can produce a level of organic growth that social networking will struggle to match, and it can help to improve page rankings on search engines if the content is optimised for specific keywords. Blogging can deliver on many fronts. All it takes is effort and a little thought. However, if you really want to improve your business blogs, then you’ll need to make them focused and relevant to your target market: you’ll need to converse with your audience before you can start to convert and capitalise.
So here are a few simple tips for improving business blogging.
Make blogging a priority.
Business blogs need to be targeted and written regularly. Because the content is used to enhance the overall marketing strategy, it’s important that businesses prioritise their blogs and ensure that they are shared with the target audience on a regular basis. Audiences and communities like routine: they will expect content to be provided regularly, whether that’s daily, weekly or every fortnight. The job of the business blogger is to ensure that the audience’s expectations are met.
Relevance.
Bloggers need to realise that they are writing for their audience, therefore they need to keep the writing focused and relevant. There’s nothing wrong with going off on a tangent occasionally particularly if you’re struggling for inspiration: there’s also nothing wrong with varying the content from time to time either. However, it’s important to remember that the blogs are written for a community, not for you. Consequently, they have to be relevant to your niche sector. Forget the funny stories and homespun anecdotes; write about what you do better than anyone else in your sector. Stick to the topic in hand, and remember that business blogs are keyword-specific. Sticking with these will deliver what your audience expects and will be readily indexed by the search engines.
If you’re struggling for inspiration, then focus on the core business and its target market, and come up with 3 or 4 basic topics. If your company specialises in outsourced internet marketing, for instance, then think about the key elements of this specialisation. What sort of strategies do you use? You might decide to concentrate on internet marketing, social media marketing, website design and usability, and search engine optimisation. All a business then needs to do is research these areas, and blog about what is happening in the market: what the latest news is, handy tips you’ve picked up online that you’d like to share with your audience and any relevant reports and statistics that you come across. Your readers will find this sort of information relevant and interesting.
If you’re good at what you do, then blow your own trumpet now and then.
If you’ve spent a long time crafting good content, then make sure you promote it. It’s not a question of showing off: it’s more a matter of getting your message across to the widest possible audience. Promote your blogs through social networks, and submit them as guest posts to your industry sector. Hopefully, these posts will then link back to you in return, which will only enhance your search engine credibility.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help.
The hardest part about blogging is writing the content. Yes that may be stating the obvious, but there will be occasions when you’ll get writer’s block and struggle for inspiration. Make no mistake about it, content is difficult to produce, particularly if you’re writing about a niche market or product. Well don’t over-think the matter. Ask for help from other members of the team. More minds make lighter work. Don’t put unnecessary restrictions on yourself either: let your mind wonder from time to time, and see what ideas you can come up. Blogging doesn’t need to be prescriptive. If a member of the team comes up with a left- field idea, don’t dismiss it out of hand. Anything goes, in a sense, as long as it remains relevant. Just make sure you write the ideas down. You can always ignore the ones that are too oblique and tangential later.
