Every month, on average, 673K users use Google to ask “how to blog for business” so clearly this is on a lot of people’s minds. Perhaps a more important question is why should you create and keep up a blog for your business? After all, blogging takes time and you have a business to run.
First, blogging or blog marketing should be part of your overall marketing strategy, but keep in mind that according to eMarketer, 39% of U.S. companies already use blogging as part of their marketing strategy.
Why do 39% of companies already use blogging? Her are a few interesting facts:
- 65% of daily internet readers, read blogs daily1
- 46% of internet users read more than one blog per day2
- Blogs help people narrow choices and influence buying decisions for products and services3
- Companies that blog have 55% more website visitors4
There are many more statistics, but blogs drive traffic to your website and help customers to make product and services decisions. Isn’t that what you need for your business?
Getting back to the original question of how to blog for business, here are the basic steps:
- Decide on the goals and target audience for your blog. Goals could be to increase brand awareness, increase your Google ranking to drive more people to your website, or to build customer loyalty and community to name a few. Your audience is who you want to read your blog. They would typically be customers and prospects if you are creating a blog to help maximize your business.
- Create your own blog website or have someone create one for you. If you are a small or midsize business owner, you may want to have someone like the staff at Creative Angle Marketing do that for you so that you can focus on running your business. There are a number of things that can be done to make your blog more compelling to search engines and humans, so be sure to discuss this with whoever implements your blog.
- Decide how often you should blog and create an editorial calendar to keep you on track. Blog posts (entries) are typically 500-700 words and you should think about posting no less than 3 times a week, but more is better.
- Start writing. Review your goals and make sure you are addressing them. Make sure you are providing compelling and rich content. Draw your audience in with your titles and keep them coming back with interesting insights into your industry or business. A large part of blog marketing is about engaging your audience – you want them to comment on what you write and come back for more. Remember, blogging for business should be fun, so have some!
That should help with the how, but on the “what to write” you can always get ideas by looking at what is going on in your industry and/or business and discuss that. If you are a restaurant owner, perhaps there is a new food trend that’s interesting. Or if you are in retail, what’s changing? What’s the newest toy or product on the market? You can also go to Google, type in some keywords from you industry, like “photography” or “beauty products” and on the left side of the Google page, click on blog. From there you can see what others are saying and use that to get some ideas.
So next time you are asked, What is blogging for business?, I hope you have a much better idea. I am here to help start your blog marketing efforts. Please contact me to learn more or find out Creative Angle Marketing can assist you.
Happy Blogging!
Footnotes:
1. UM, Oct 2010
2. Hubspot, The Science of Blogging, 2010
3. Juniper Research, 2008
4. Hubspot, 2010