I was delighted to receive this blog post idea request from Ashleigh Grange, owner of Plush Text Communications – a writing and translation company specializing in multicultural communications. Though we haven't met in person yet, Asheligh was one of the first Barrie business owners I connected with as I was preparing to move here. Of course, we met on Twitter.

According to Ashleigh, her audience is "primarily local and national businesses competing internationally, selling products and services to other provincial, territorial or global markets. They use translation services to market their products and services to new and foreign audiences who don't necessarily speak English as a first language."

Her blogging goals are to keep their content relevant, valuable and in response to their target audience's concerns/pain points. She says she often struggles to keep her blog topics consistent with brand messaging.

I browsed the Plush Text blog, with posts dating back to June 2009 (quite different from the last submission!), and one of the first things I noticed was how varied her target audiences were.

Your groups and goals

Let's break down who these audience groups are, and the goals behind reaching out to them.

Some posts, like this one about translation specialties, are aimed at fellow translators. This content does an excellent job of positioning Ashleigh and her agency as industry experts – both to her colleagues and to potential clients.

Asheligh continues to claim her expertise with do-it-yourself tips for writing online content, such as this great post about creating multicultural websites.

(Categories: Tips for Translators, Writing Tips, Website Tips) 

Other posts on the site are designed to educate her target market about translation tools and services, such as this one about Google Translate or this one about how to choose a translation company.

(Categories: Hiring a Translator, Online Translators)

To address common issues that her customers face, Ashleigh and her team published some posts about doing business in other countries. Here's one about business etiquette in Mexico (I'd love to see a series here on a variety of countries), and another about business travel.

(Categories: International Business Etiquette, Business Travel)

Another way of positioning herself as an industry leader is to compile relevant news of interest to her target market. In a series of early posts (possibly worth revisiting), they browsed the headlines for stories related to writing and translation.

What I liked even more was how Asheligh used a national holiday as inspiration for this excellent post about workplace safety and how translators keep your employees safe.

(Category: Translation in the News)

Let's categorize your content

Ashleigh, you're doing great with the blog! What I recommend is that you assign blog categories to all of your posts. You can start with the eight I've suggested above, but of course you'll want to make sure these are aligned with the branding strategy you've identified for your company.

Yes, it will take you an hour or two to go back through your mountain of content, but consider the benefits:

• Your visitors will be able to quickly find relevant content, whether they're fellow translators, potential clients or just curious about the topic
• You can focus on creating a balance of posts in all categories, which will help with your content strategy and planning
• You can look back at which categories/posts have gotten the most response, and write similar posts

If you're interesting in automating a newsletter, I believe you can create category-specific RSS feeds in WordPress. Then you could set up automatic RSS-to-email newsletters (see this post for links and more details) where each type of reader can receive the exact content they're interested in.

So keep doing what you're doing, and aim for balance so that each of your audience groups can consistently return and find new relevant and valuable content.

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Would you like me to come up with some weekly blog post ideas for your business?

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Barbra asked for blog topic ideas for WriteaBio.com, saying, "It's not currently a blog but I want to add a blog component. My audience is anyone who needs to write a bio, which ranges from executives to tradespeople."

When I visited Barbra's site, I saw that it was indeed geared to people in a WIDE variety of industries. What do they all have in common? They're looking for a job, or some sort of career change.

And so a valuable topic for a monthly feature article might be job interview/meeting tips, e.g., confident communication strategies, the importance of non-verbal cues, preparing for your interview, or even hints about clothing and make-up/accessories.

Of course there's already been lots written about this topic, so be sure to put a creative slant on your posts. Try something like, "How job interviews are like ________," or "What _________ can teach you about job interviews."

In between those monthly feature articles, I'd suggest playing off the main topic with industry-specific suggestions that help people make the best impression in their particular field or industry.

And how about some case study examples from your customers? You already have some wonderful testimonials on the site – can you approach some of those people to do a more in-depth interview with you? Photos would also enrich these stories – especially if you can capture people "in action" at work.

For more connective content, you could also be combing newspapers and blogs for interesting stories about job interviews and career success stories, and playing off those from your own perspective and experience as a career coach.

Now that was a challenge – blog topic ideas for a site that doesn't have a blog yet! Thanks for playing along, Barbra – I can't wait to see what you do with them.

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Do you need some ideas for YOUR weekly blog posts? You can submit your blog for consideration and I will write a post just like this one – but it will be about YOU, YOUR business and YOUR prospective clients.

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