Are you considering setting up a blog for business? You can accomplish a lot of marketing with a blog for your company if you know how to go about it. And since our opinion is that every business should be blogging, we also believe that learning how to blog for business shouldn’t be an impossible feat

The following simple guidelines will prepare you for incorporating blogging into your marketing plan. You can do this…

Understand the benefits of blogging for business

Blogging is such a great marketing strategy, and here’s why that’s the truth:

• A business blog makes your brand more visible, powerful and engaging
• A business blog labels you as a voice of authority and your company as a valuable resource
• Business blogging improves your search ranking with additional keyword optimization, inbound links and fresh content
• A business blog gives you the chance – through metrics and reader response – to learn about customer interests
• You stay more connected to your audience and community with a business blog

If you don’t have an updated blog for business, you’re missing out on some serious benefits.

Think of your blog as a business

Just like you create a thorough business plan before anything else, create a business blogging plan before you even start blogging.

Why are you starting a blog for your business? Who do you intend to target? What experience do you wish readers to have? Why will your readers subscribe to your blog posts and come back for more? What are your competitors doing? Can you dedicate the proper resources – time, money, energy – to your business blog? How will you convert readers into leads?

Boil it all down to simple answers backed up by solid reasoning. Show your business blogging plan to others on your team and get second opinions. If you can convince others that setting up a blog for business is a good idea, the importance (and purpose) of blogging for your own company will become clearer.

Remember that “content is king”

People have been using this phrase for years, and it still rings true to this day. Once you identify your message and choose the platform on which you will send that message (your business blog) you can focus on the quality of your message, aka your message.

These are the elements of great content that every business blog post must embrace:

• Fresh: does your blog touch on any news, trends or current events that relate to your industry or company? Search engines favor websites that stay up to date with what’s happening currently in the world. By “fresh” I am also referring to the simple act of updating your business blog regularly so as to provide your website with new content on a continual basis.
• Relevant: does the overall message conveyed in your blog resonate with your audience? Define your overall message and make sure each blog post fits into or around that message somehow. For example, if you want to offer your readers home improvement tips, every blog topic you write about should be about the home and, in some way, offer advice or inspiration to live a better life at home.
• Interesting: does your content spark some kind of emotion from your readers? Personify your brand and infuse your brand’s “personality” into every single blog post.
• Valuable: how does your content help solve readers’ problems or answer their questions? What’s in it for them?
• Action-oriented: do readers know what they should be doing after they finish reading your blog post? Assume that they do not, and tell them what they should do with the use of calls-to-actions (CTAs) and confident language.
• Optimized: a little search engine optimization (SEO) goes a long way and gives your blog posts a much better chance of ranking well in the search engine results.

The content that makes up your blog does not always have to be lengthy or go into excruciating detail about the topic at hand – in fact, it usually never does. You can get away with composing short blog posts for your business because readers actually prefer brevity.

Be consistent and persistent

It’s usually when you commit to writing several blog posts a month (or week) for your business that the blog really takes off and you see some pretty interesting numbers. Figure out what you can reasonably commit to before you begin, and go from there.

If you can only commit to writing two blogs a month, start there. You might be a little rusty at first, but that’s what practice is for. Updating a blog for business certainly is practice, and you will get better with every blog post that you write.

It can also get tiresome to update your blog for business on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. If your ideas start to dwindle, search for different topic ides and see what others are doing. Don’t just quit – be persistent and give your business blog a chance! For instance, Entrepreneur.com highlights 50 great ideas for your business blog if you’re running low on creativity.

Get started with your business blog

If you’re looking for more specific blogging tips, use our own blogs as a resource for creating the style and content needed for creating your own blogs!

If you understand the importance of setting up a blog for business, have the drive and commitment to see the plan through and the resources to remain consistent, I see business blogging in your future! If you don’t have the time, energy or resources to commit to blogging for business but you know you need to do it, give us a call or email to see if we can help you.

Good luck with your business blogging plan!

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