If you are considering blogging for your business, but you are not really sure where to start or how to create a successful business blog.
if that’s the case, then this post is for you.
During the last few weeks, I have been doing an experiment that has nothing to do with work or my website.
Every time I’m in a public place, I’ve been making the effort not to be on my phone.
In reality, the reason why I started to do this was because my phone’s battery was not working very well and I was having a hard time accepting that I needed to do something about it.
What I discovered everywhere I went, was that everybody seems to focused on their phone all the time.
It didn’t matter where I was, I could be sitting on a waiting room, exercising, waiting for my kids, walking the dog and the list goes on.
This experience really helped me understand and served as proof that we live in a different world, where the internet and the phones win above everything else.
Although I am aware of this and I make a great effort not to live my life that way.
The reality is, for us as business owners, this is just another great opportunity and it is our job to understand how to take advantage of it.
How to use the power of the Internet to attract new customers to your business
Today if you want to succeed using the internet to promote your business, it is important to accept that we live in the era of media.
If your business can help other people and there are people willing to pay for the solution that your business provides, you have no excuse not to promote your business online.
Even though I’ve been blogging for many years, I’ve only been writing on my blog consistently since a little over a year.
I have made many mistakes and I have discovered many things thanks to blogging.
Some of the mistakes I could have avoided if I had known what to do back then or if I had someone to tell me what to do.
I have been persistent and have worked on correcting my mistakes and now I have a better idea of what works and what does not.
I thought if I shared those mistakes and lessons with you int he hopes that you can learn from them
How to create a successful business blog: 7 lessons I wish I knew when I started
Lesson # 1: If you want to use the internet to promote your business, your business needs to have a voice
Today if you want to promote your business on the internet, your business needs to have a voice and blogging allows you to develop that voice.
You need to look at you blog’s content as a bridge that allows you connect directly with your audience that will help you attract them to your business.
There have never been so many alternatives to connect with your audience. The possibilities have no limits and it is only up to you to learn how to take advantage of them.
Lesson # 2: Writing consistently and consistently is difficult, but not impossible
Writing is not easy, it requires a lot of practice and discipline, but it can definitely be learned and improved. Some recommendations are:
- Read a lot: it really does not matter what you read, it can be content related to your industry or not. It’s amazing what we read about things that are not related to our work.
- Write often: there is no better way to improve than practice
You must relate to people in your audience: Interacting with your audience will help you to identify the topics you should write about and the areas in which you need to improve.
Lesson # 3: You need a strategy
From the beginning you need to think about your strategy and you must plan your content based on it. It’s of no use to write about what you like or enjoy.You must write about the topics that interest your audience.
To define your strategy, you need to be clear, you need to know what your goal is, who is your audience and what action do you want your readers to take when they read your post.
The key to a successful strategy lies in knowing how to put all this into practice. It is not easy to achieve, but the more you practice, the more you learn.
When working on the strategy it is important that you consider the following:
- What is the purpose of your company’s blog?
- Who is your ideal reader?
- What are you going to offer your reader ?: tips, information, inspiration, solutions, etc.
- How will you measure your results? This is a must, what is not measured is not improved.
Lesson # 4: Planning the content of your blog and for how long
You need a plan to put your strategy into practice.
A strategy is just an idea but you have a plan to implement it.
The simpler your strategy, the better your chances of implementing it and your chances of success.
Use a calendar to help you stay organized and allow you to visualize your strategy, then some of my recommendations.
- You must decide how often you want to publish content, regardless of the frequency you choose, the important thing is that you are consistent and have a realistic goal that you can meet.
- The ideal is to be able to plan a few months in advance. This can be difficult, but the more you can plan ahead, the better.
- Take into consideration important dates for your business, such as the launch of new products, industry events, etc.
Lesson # 5: Your content should be original and unique
You should focus on quality and not quantity of content. You must try to answer the question: Why should someone read your blog post? If they can get the same information by doing a Google search.
Your blog should be different from your competition, the way you achieve this is by injecting the personality of your business to your content.
You need to understand what makes your business different from your competitors and translate that on your blog’s content.
Lesson # 6: How to avoid running out of ideas
It is important that you write about topics that are of interest to your audience. You do not always need to write about different topics, sometimes it’s enough to help your audience to see a topic from a different angle.
Do your best to relate what you write with current topics and keep your content interesting. Some recommendations are:
- Always consider SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and research keywords for your blog posts
- Get ideas from websites where your audience spend time and listen to the questions they ask. Examples of such websites are: Quora and Buzzsumo.
- Read popular articles in your industry and outside of your industry too.
Lesson # 7: Use visual content
Every day the content of your website competes with more content. The result of this is that it has become increasingly difficult for the content of your business blog to stand out.
So what should you do?
One way to get the attention of your audience and to differentiate your business content is through the use of visual content.
Including the right image in your content may causedthe content of your blog or website to be viewed and shared in social media.
Successful online businesses incorporate visual content such as infographics, videos and images that people want to share with others.
Conclusion
Nowadays, wether you like or not, if you want to stay competitive, you need to look for ways to maximize the power of the Internet.
