Content marketing is a powerful tool for Making Business Blog A Success for small business owners, it gives you the opportunity to communicate directly with your customers and helps you to establish credibility in your space.
Your business blog is one of the best ways to deliver quality content to your target audience.
Now, it is a quiet Sunday morning and you are determined to get some blogging done. Although you woke up extra early and the keyboard is at your fingertips, for some business owners, blogging can still be a daunting task. Having writer’s block or not having the time or discipline to properly flush out your ideas is enough to quit before you ever get started.
For others, not knowing how to leverage the written content effectively to move the needle and drive the business forward can breed frustration.
Making Business Blog A Success-
As a small business owner, if you find yourself on either end of the spectrum or anywhere in between, here are 10 tips that you can use to help make your business blog a success.
Pay attention to the questions and comments you receive
If done right, this tip is as good as gold especially if you are experiencing writer’s block. Questions and comments can provide some of the best headlines and subject matter for your blog posts. Chances are, if one person has a question about your product or service then others may have the same question and benefit from the answers you provide.
Provide Valuable Information
According to HubSpot, companies that publish more valuable content get almost 3.5 times more traffic than companies that publish between 0 – 4 monthly posts.
As an added bonus, you become the authority within your industry and as a trusted resource, over time you’ll convert more casual readers and visitors into paying customers.
There really are no hard set rules on how many times per week or month you should post content to your blog. Frequency depends on your customer base, industry and to some degree your business model. However, you do need to be consistent.
Within the hair and beauty space, for instance, we find that blogging more often (at least 1 – 4 times per week) works because your customers are generally more interactive and may prefer more communication rather than less.
The frequency of blog posts depends on what’s best for your company. Smaller businesses have found comfort and success posting one to four times a week, while larger companies can push out daily and, sometimes, multiple daily posts. – HubSpot
Within the financial or B2B space where professionals may be actively prospecting for new business or pushing out financial literacy content, blogging 11+ times per month might be best for your industry. The most important thing is choosing a schedule that is consistent so customers have some level of expectation for your content.
Blogging is great for SEO
We like to say, an investment in your blog is an investment in SEO. Keep in mind, algorithms and SEO are ever-changing and to that point, Google is moving away from a keyword-based search to semantic search. This means, their built-in AI can determine a “searchers” intent rather than just keyword density. Your customers are searching for phrases, topics, and ideas, not just one or two words.
Girlfriends searching for black-owned brunch spots that serve the best mimosa’s may not come across your restaurant if you only have content about your lunch specials. Get creative and create content that you know your customers will be searching for.
Make It Easy for Your Readers To Subscribe
Have you ever heard the term “the money is in the list”? Well, that still rings true, which means you should have some way of collecting email addresses as people visit pages on your website.
You can use your blog to collect email addresses by creating free valuable downloads that make it easier for a lead to opt into your list. Once you have a solid opt-in you can nurture that lead with valuable content that pushes them through your funnel.
Promote and Share What You Write
If you have blog posts that have valuable information about your products and services, SHARE IT! Share it on social media, in your newsletters, email signatures and encourage your tribe to click and share it as well.
Mix it up! Write long-form content and microblog posts
While longer articles can rank higher on Google, fuel your SEO and generate more website visits, shorter posts might be the key to retaining your audience’s attention. Microblogging (300-500 word posts) is great for social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram as well as your blog.
Make your posts easy to read
Use subheadings, bullets, and other types of formatting to make it easier for your readers to skim your content quickly and pick out information that is important to them.
Incorporate Visuals
Pictures and infographics like the one above are all great visual pieces that will support your content. They are great for driving home a point and illustrating your ideas and subject matter.
If you own a retail store that sells boutique beauty products, use great visuals of your store and product to encourage engagement around the content you create.
Here is another example – Marsh and Mane is a natural hair beauty supply boutique in Philly that often shares gorgeous photos of the inside of their store.
Marsh And Mane Boutique Instagram
Pictures like the one above are great lead photos for blog posts that are geared towards getting customers to visit their store.
Double-check and triple check your content
We are all human, so errors will creep into your masterpiece and they are difficult to catch. We suggest to our team before you submit an article, come back to it an hour or even a day later (if time permits). If you do not have an editor, having another person with a fresh pair of eyes to take a look can help you to catch small errors. This will help ensure you are delivering error-free content.
Tip! Read your blog posts on different devices, tablets, cell phones, and your laptop just to create perspective.
Be patient
Blogging takes time, it is not a magic bullet or overnight growth strategy. We often tell clients that blogging is a long term investment that will take time to gain momentum, in fact in the wrong hands it can even stunt your growth.
The keys to business blogging success are being consistent, knowing your target audience and adding value to that audience. Executing on these principles alone will give you a rock solid foundation and framework for your business blog.
