Once you have your business blog set-up it’s time to create content. Which isn’t always as easy as you might think.
What should you blog about?
The answer depends upon your niche and the needs of your customers/clients.
Ask yourself, “what is the purpose of my blog?” For many business owners, one or more of the following reasons apply:
- To generate new business
- It’s part of an overall online marketing strategy
- To demonstrate knowledge and expertise
- To drive traffic to sales pages/products
- To keep my website fresh
- To build a community
- To enhance communication between my business and my clients
One important thing to remember about a business blog and its content is this - It’s not about you, it’s about them: your clients.
Giving your readers what they want, and not what you want to give them, is what makes a blog successful.
Do this by answering questions and providing solutions to common problems and niggles. Show examples of your work and use your blog as a platform to sell yourself.
Some of the services where blogging works well include:
- Freelancing – Writers, photographers, programmers, sales, marketing
- Creatives – Graphic designers, web design, logo design, branding
- Health and fitness – Personal trainers, nutritionists, weight loss, sport fitness
- Consultants – Business development, project management, construction, demolition
(There are many more…)
Why do they work?
Because the people behind the blog have a chance to show off their expertise and skills, and the people looking to hire them have a chance to assess their ability to do the job in hand.
Creating content for your business blog
Back to the question at the start of this post – what should you blog about?
Here are a few general ideas for blog topics:
- Case studies
- Tips
- How to guides
- In-depth product reviews
- Industry news
- Product/service comparisons
- Trade shows
- Experiences
- Lists
- Interviews
- Recommendations
- Tools/services
Brand new blogs require quite a bit of work in order for them to be useful. This means putting in a lot of work at the start to fill out the pages. Once you have 10-20 posts you can slow down a little and develop a more robust editorial schedule – once or twice a week, once every day – whatever is good for you.
Blogs use categories to group together content. In the beginning, create four or five categories and produce content that fits neatly into one of those categories.
Finding ideas for blog posts
The great place to find ideas for content is from clients. What are their woes, their concerns, their niggles? How can you help them?
Blog about the solutions.
Keep a eye on industry news sites, see what people are saying on Twitter, monitor Facebook pages, are there new products on the horizon, new services, new tools?
Subscribe to RSS feeds, email newsletters and create Twitter lists to stay in touch with the people/businesses that are important to you.
Inspiration
When bloggers hit a stumbling block they often take to the web in search of inspiration, usually from their favourite blogs, their Twitter feed or Facebook.
Often it takes just a sentence or two generate an idea.
A walk or change of situation does a world of good too.
At the start of the process, the most important thing to do is create something and publish it.
As your blog grows you will develop a sense of what works and what doesn’t.
Picture – daniel_feldt
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