Blogging is a great skill to add to your business repertoire. But while a blog may be your route to success digitally, where do you even begin to start with one? Where does the thought process begin and subsequently end? It all starts with your digital footprint and your website.
Many businesses start with their website being their digital hub, but a blog can be a great extension of it. One of the first things you need to do, of course, is to work on your initial website, and this can be the make and break. However, once you have a website in place how do you go from having your main site to a blog that helps to run alongside it, or even be a standalone site itself?
In all honesty, not many business entrepreneurs take blogging as part of their business strategy seriously, but there are a number of ways it can help you. It can help direct traffic to your website at any time, with the use of keywords and search engine optimisation factors. It can also be a softer sales approach when it comes to sharing information about your business and products or services. So how do you go about it? Here are some of the tips to consider.
Think about what you want to achieve from a blog
So you have decided that a blog could help your business out digitally, but have you really thought about what you could achieve from it? Ultimately people have different agendas when it comes to their business blog, so this should be personal to you and your business. But some of the most common goals could include some of the following. The first example would be to direct more traffic to your website.
Which, of course, could end up with more sales as more people become accustomed to your business and your purpose. Another benefit and goal would be to gain a better customer perception. You can build up a level of trust between business and consumer as a blog is seen as a great way to promote, without directly telling someone to buy something.
It has a softer edge to it and can be on the line of being more informative than a sales advert. There are plenty of goals you could have, and most of which, will ultimately help you promote your business and develop more sales in the future. Another advertising factor to add to your marketing strategy.
Consider hosting or a domain for your blog
The next step is to consider how you actually bring a blog into practice, so what would be the next step? You may already have an excellent domain, so adding a blog category to your already existing website could be the way forward. Or you may want to choose to add a new domain to your website repertoire and have a completely separate blog and link back to your website.
Which can be great from an SEO perspective. If you go down this route then you need to consider other elements such as WordPress hosting. There can be monthly fees for things like this, and not only that, but you also need to ensure that you are seen online in regards to your domain authority. Which can be built up over time.
Develop the blog and design
Once you have your ideas sorted and have decided on the way you want to go in regards to the blog, and maybe you have purchased your domain name or decided what to do, now is the time to develop your blog and your theme. There are many behind the scenes software options like WordPress which offer free themes. These can help create the right look, to begin with for your business blog with very minimal fuss or intervention needed from experts or professionals.
One of the main key areas is always to ensure that your latest content is displayed first, or even featured in some way. Another key area to think of is to consider adding your website link on your main page, as well as your social media links which can help direct traffic in other areas. Finally, the pictures you use on your blog need to be high resolution and good quality. Often imagery can be just as captivating as the words you use in the content, so take time to edit the pictures appropriately.
Take into account SEO and keywords
Search engine optimisation and the use of keywords will be vital for your business blog to become a success. The internet is a saturated market, not just within your industry, but in general. It has become more apparent that you need to stand out in order for you to be visible in search engines.
This is when the use of keywords within the content you produce, placing emphasis on the words that might be included when someone is looking for answers on a search engine. There are plenty of tutorials online to help you get a better understanding of SEO and keywords. But you can also enlist the help of a digital agency if you want to ensure that you get this right first time round.
Creating the ideal content
You also need to take some time to consider the type of content you want to create. What might suit well with your business? Do you want to inform? Do you want to sell? Even thinking about certain keywords you want to include as mentioned earlier. When it comes to content, often the quality of the content you produce far outweighs the quantity you produce. So make sure you take this into account when you are creating blog content. Taking time to plan out your content would be advisable, and not just hitting the publish button after ten minutes of typing.
This can be a mistake. Take time to revisit your content, read it, and read it again. Get a colleague to check it if needs be as well. Many WordPress or Blogger software will have PlugIns to enable you to check your content for readability, SEO, and keywords. Take advantage of these as they can take some of the hard work out of creating suitable blog content. Finally, make sure you are personally happy about it. After all, a blog can be less descriptive, less direct, as a website is. This could be a softer approach to selling your products.
Think about a schedule to create consistency
Having a schedule when it comes to the content is vital element to your blog. You may be wondering why that would be so important? However, this helps you to be consistent with your blog and content and also helps for SEO purposes which we mentioned earlier would be important to your blog and your main website. But it can also let readers become aware of when to expect new articles and content.
Some customers may want to revisit your blog or site for more information on another day. A schedule would help identify that. Some people like to post as often as they can, but always remember that the quality of the content you produce is more important. That being said, if you can post often, then you have more chances of boosting your SEO and driving traffic to your company, which is ultimately the end goal.
Use social media to promote your posts
Once you have your blog and your content published, what next? You need to think about how you advertise the content and how you get your message heard. Social media is a great way to do this. It can be as simple as posting your latest blog post as part of your social media strategy. Helping drive traffic to the post. There are more tips online to strategize your social media output.