Business blogging is a proven way to keep your website fresh, which will satisfy both the potential customers who are looking for information and help, and the referral sources that are looking to send those customers your way.
The referral sources could be friends, family members or business associates of your clients-to-be, your own network of professional contacts, or search engines. The more you blog about the topics that are important to your customers, the more credibility you will gain with these referrers.
To help you get started on the right foot with your business blog, here are five key things I like people to understand:
- You must blog consistently. The biggest mistake you can make with blogging is to start and then stop. An inactive or outdated blog – I call it a “ghost town” – creates a negative impression about you and your business. So however often you decide to post, stick with a schedule that shows visitors they can count on you.
- A small effort brings a big reward. According to Hubspot, companies that blog just 1-2 times per month generate 70% more leads than companies that don’t blog at all. I recommend you start with that frequency and then eventually work up to once a week. Give people a reason to keep coming back to see what’s new.
- Blogging is marketing. Blogging and social media aren’t separate from the rest of your marketing plan, they’re additional ways to implement that plan. Ultimately a blog is another place to express who you are and what you do, in ways that also provide concrete and practical information for your visitors.
- Blogging can be fun. There are many different kinds of blog posts you can write – they don’t all have to be 500-word feature articles. You can incorporate other content that is enjoyable and easy for you to produce, and appealing to your audience, such as videos, interviews or book reviews. Hint: Aim to include at least 250-300 words of text in each post, even if you’re featuring an audio, video or graphic.
- One blog tree can produce multiple types of fruit. Once you get the hang of keeping your blog active, you can re-use that same content to have other meaningful conversations with your audience (email newsletters, social media, slideshow videos, reports, e-books, books, presentations, training, etc.). The reverse is also true; there are many way to “blogify” existing content that you already have on hand.
Is there anything you would add to this list? If you’re already blogging for your business, what’s something you wish you had known before you started?