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Blogging for Fun & Profit: Build Your Business Blogging Skills So, your business has decided to leap into the blogosphere. Great! There’s no shortage of reasons why blogging can benefit your business. However, the world of business blogging may still feel like uncharted territory. What should your blog discuss? How many posts should get published, and how often? Just who the heck is going to read this stuff, anyway? This blog about blogging (a meta-blog?) is intended to help you hit the ground running with tips on creating timely and fresh blogs that meet the needs and engage the minds of your readership. Lay the foundation A great blog starts with a great plan, and the planning stage is where you first answer the big questions that will determine what you write about, who you write for, and why you’re writing in the first place. Before you fire up your typewriter, be sure to nail down answers to the following questions: Start with buyer personas—who will be interested in what your business has to say? What are their pain points, and how do your products or services address and resolve them? Targeting your content to a specific readership makes it more likely to be seen (and shared). Develop a list of keywords relevant to your buyer personas. What kinds of search terms will they use when looking for solutions? Knowing your keywords and putting them into use can optimise your blog to be found, guide your writing process and keep your copy consistent. How often will you write? The fresher and more frequent your content, the more you’ll have to offer to your readership, and the more Google’s page rankings will look favourably on your website. Set measurable goals in both the short and the long term. Are you looking to grow your email list and cultivate new leads, or are you focused on making your brand’s voice trusted and authoritative in your field? Whatever your goals, ensure that you have reliable metrics for measuring your progress. Pick your topics. Are you drawing a blank every time you sit down to write? It may be easy to simply write a product feature or fluff up a sales pitch, but it’s important to remember that the point of your blogs is to provide value to your audience, not to sell to them. Look at your buyer personas and their pain points or problems, and assemble them into categories. These categories and their relevant personas will focus your writing and guide your use of keywords to optimise the SEO boost that the post provides. From here, you can begin to address some general topics. Another great source of blogging inspiration is your existing customer base. Think about the kinds of questions from customers that you answer regularly. Many represent common pain points and can easily become full blog posts. For every customer who comes in or sends an email with a common question, just imagine how many there are tapping their query into Google in search of an answer! For example, a furniture store might write a blog on the difference in durability between leather, vinyl, and fabric upholsteries or the different types of mattresses and their levels of support. An informative post that answers and visualises questions and gives your readers information that they can act on will rank higher on search engines and position your business as a source of information that readers can trust. Content (not copy) is king. Getting the copy down is one thing, but your blog will be as dry as a bone without engaging content to supplement that copy. The content that your copy supports, more than anything, is what sets your blog apart from your competitors and drives the solution to your readership’s problem. It’s best to make your own, but plenty of resources exist for those who don’t collect data or employ a design team. Statistic Visuals Provide relevant and substantiated statistics in graphs and infographics—these add credibility to your posts and can provide shock value when used properly. Header and Sub-header Images: Use visuals to break up the text. The text of headers and sub-headers can often be incorporated into a relevant image that draws the reader’s attention and invites them to read further. A well-chosen graphic or photograph can break up the monotony of plain text and add a visual further away from the information the audience receives. Screenshots/photos: Use screenshots or photos to demonstrate your solution. Remember that you’re here to provide value, not to sell. Like reading a long ad, getting to a blog means you won’t return for anything live or authoritative. The more your readers can learn from your post, the more likely they will return inspired to test what you’ve learned immediately in your Story. Tell compelling stories (and write snappy titles). Narrative is a powerful tool; we’ve known how to use it in sales and marketing for a long time. The same goes for your blogs. Framing the movement from conflict to resolution as a journey makes your audience more receptive to the information you have to share. It puts it within a familiar and memorable framework. Start with choosing a narrative voice. Anecdotes and stories about your business can use a first-person voice to draw readers in and demonstrate your unique way of overcoming challenges in ways that others can learn from and put into practice. A second-person voice (like the one used in this blog) allows readers to visualise themselves acting out your solutions as you offer them. In contrast, a third-person voice is suited to communicating stories about how your business has been part of another customer’s success. Leverage your buyer personas and their challenges to tell stories that will engage your audience and show how your business fits into their lives. Your posts don’t have to read like a novel, but putting your info into action will help transform your blog from a lecture into a success story. Sharing is Caring You’ve
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