The beauty of the blog is its ability to connect a business with its audience. That could be its customers, its stakeholders, its clients or even its employees. A blog is an excellent choice of online content that can drive traffic towards your product or your services, entertain readers and promote your brand.
If your business doesn’t have one, it could be that you haven’t known where exactly to start.
Come up with your idea
An idea might be good, but if you don’t believe in it, will you put the work in to make it a success? Your blog premise should be coming from your heart, something that you are passionate about, compliments your product and entertains the reader.
Something ground-breaking wouldn’t hurt, but it doesn’t always have to be complicated. Straightforward content like answering frequently asked questions or listicles, articles in the form of a list, are often useful.
Decide on your platform
If you already have your own website, you will probably want to start your blog there, on a new page. Make sure it is evident from the home page and a distinctive part of your brand – the blog could have a slightly different font or web design to the more “business” parts of your site.
If you’re creating your blog from scratch, there are several easy to use platforms you can choose from, for example, Blogger or WordPress.
Choose your writer
Maybe you are a wordsmith yourself, and within your business, you have the time to sit down and get creative. If you do, fantastic. If not, you might want to hire a blog writer or, if that isn’t financially viable, pay writers on a freelance basis to do so. If there is a budding blogger in your ranks already, offer them the opportunity to show off their knowledge and flair.
Alternatives to in-house writing are explained by Click Intelligence with guest blogging a popular option. Whoever it is uploading on your blog, their content should be tailored to your company, creative and engaging.
Promote your blog
Once your blog is up and running, you want people to read it. You’ve had the bright idea, your product is golden, and your writer is talented. That’s all going to waste if nobody is paying any attention.
Improving your social media presence will help provide you with a platform on which you can share your blog. If you already have an active social media channel, use it to share out your blog using hashtags and linking to relevant pages. This will improve the chances of your post being seen and, hopefully, clicked on.
Getting guest writers or doing interviews is another excellent way to promote your blog. If somebody has been interviewed for one of your articles, they are sure to share it in their circles and increase your reputation. You should also post regularly so that people don’t click on your blog and see that it hasn’t been updated in months and forget about you.
Conclusion
Blogs are an easy but exciting way to converse with your audience, drive traffic to your website and keep your brand fresh. Remember to be creative and produce a varied range of content. Once there is a decent number of posts on your blog, your audience is more likely to come back again, or spend longer clicking around your website. Most of all, make it a fun part of your business.
