Blogging has become a common way to market your business online. Starting a blog is one of the most effective ways to promote your business and increase your reach. In spite of this, many small businesses are still hesitant to invest in blogging and as a result have failed to take advantage of this to benefits their business.
Before we take a look at how to start a blog for your small business, it is important to understand the benefits and challenges of blogging for business.
Why Your Small Business Needs a Blog?
There are many reasons why you should start a blog for your small business. The main benefits are as follows.
- Blog Will Increase Traffic to Your Website
- Blog Will Improve Your Search Engine Ranking
- Blog Will Help Generate Leads for Your Business
- Blog Will Make Your Business More Trustworthy and Reputable
- Blog Will Improve Your Online Authority and Reputation
- Blog Will Help Build a Loyal User-Base
It is however important to note that benefits of blogging accrue over time. As such perseverence is key.
Main Reasons Why Small Businesses Do Not Start a Blog
In spite of the benefits of blogging, many small businesses have failed to take advantage and stayed away from starting a blog. Here are some of the main reasons why small business owners don?t blog:
- It takes time and effort to maintain a blog.
- Lack of commitment and doubts about how blog will benefit the business.
- Lack of writing skills.
- Many small businesses don?t know where to start.
How to Start a Blog For Your Small Business?
If you don?t already have a blog, starting a blog can be one of the best decisions your business makes this year. Whether your business provides Web Design services nationally or delivers flowers in your local area, you can benefit from starting a blog.
As discussed above, not knowing where to start is one of the main challenges faced by many small businesses. This article provides an insight into the main steps involved in starting an running a successful blog for your small business.
Here are the main steps for starting a small business blog:
Identify Your Niche:
Before you start a blog, you will need to identify a niche. This will be the market your blog will target and the topics it will address.
Needless to say, your niche should be related to your business. If you are a web design business, you may wish to start a blog on Web design tips. If you deliver flowers, your niche can be flower arrangements or flower decoration or a similar niche that is relevant to your business.
Here are some tips:
- Use Google Keyword Tool to research popularity of niche
- Try to focus on a narrow niche as opposed to broad
- Research other existing blogs in the niche
Why Target a Narrow Niche?
Choosing a narrow or micro niche e.g. ?Web design tips for Estate Agents? rather than a broad niche such as ?Web Design? offers several advantages. It will make it easier to establish your blog and you have greater chances of success.
If you target a broad niche, you may have a wider reach but it will be far more difficult to establish your expertise and you will be competing with many other established blogs that have been running successfully for years.
Choose a Blogging Platform:
Once you have identified a niche for your blog, one of the first steps is to choose a blogging platform or software to power your blog. There are many options that small businesses can choose from.
The two main options are as follows:
- Free Hosted Blog Platform
- Self-Hosted WordPress Blog
Free Hosted Blog Platform:
This involves creating an account and setting up your blog on one of the many free hosted blogging platforms such as WordPress.com or Blogger.com. Your blog will be hosted on a sub-domain of the provider e.g. wordpress.com/your-blog-name.
It is the easier option and can be done in a few simple steps.
Self-Hosted WordPress Blog:
A self hosted WordPress blog is different to setting-up a blog on wordpress.com. It involves downloading WordPress blog software and installing and configuring it on your own server usually in a sub-folder of your company?s existing website e.g. yourcompanywebsite.com/blog.
There are many reasons why you should host your own blog. It offers several advantages and is by far the more professional option. It gives you more control over your blog and you retain full ownership of your blog and your content. You also benefit from maximum SEO benefits.
Take a look at the study below. Nearly half the top blogs in the world use self-hosted WordPress blogs and there is a good reason for it.
Create and Maintain a List of Topics:
The topics you write about will play a significant part in the overall success of your blog. Most businesses start out well but fail to maintain momentum after a while. Running out of new topics to write about is one of the factors that contribute to this. Many small businesses run out of topics to write about after a while. It is not easy to find interesting topics on a regular basis. Fortunately, there are tools that can help you with this process. Services like Google Reader are a great way to research new information and identify topics to write about.
Here are some tips:
- Choose compelling Titles
- Use tools like Google Reader to follow blogs from your niche and get inspiration about new things to write about
- Use Google Keyword Tool to identify popular topics with high search volumes
- Take advantage of list posts and ?How to? articles
Connect Your Blog to Your Social Media Profiles:
Social media and blogging go hand in hand. Social media is one of the best places to promote your blog and get more coverage for your blog posts. Your blog posts are an excellent source of regular information for your social media profiles. Connecting your blog helps to ensure your blogs posts get more coverage whilst ensuring your social media profiles are always fresh and up to date.
Here are some tips:
- Share links to new posts on your social profiles
- Use several social networks
- Use tools to automatically post blog content on social media
- Connect and build relationships with other bloggers
- Include a link to your blog in social network profile description
Create a Publishing Schedule:
Publishing frequently is one of the most important factors for running a successful blog. This is where most small businesses fail.? Most businesses start out well but fail to maintain momentum after a while. This is where a publishing schedule can help.
Having a publishing schedule ensures your blog is updated frequently and in a consistent manner. For best results, posts should be published at the times and days that produce the best results.
Maintain and Promote Your Blog Actively:
Although the benefits of blogging are priceless, it can take time for your blog to become popular. No matter how great the quality of your posts, unless people know about your blog and are able to find it, you are not likely to get much benefit.
It is thus important to take necessary steps to promote your blog and increase the chances of it being found. There are many ways to do this.
Here are some tips:
- Use free plugins like All in One SEO plugin for WordPress to optimise your blog
- Include keywords in blog post titles
- Use Google keyword tool to identify topics with high search volumes
- Build back-links to your blog
- Include your blog link in your email signature and in other digital and printed materials
- Promote your blog through articles
- Guest post on other blogs
- Include a link to your blog in Author byline of your articles
Customise Your Blog for Lead Generation:
One of the main benefits of business blogging is to generate leads and sales for the business. Many small business blogs fail to do this. The more frequently you post content on your blog, the more leads you will acquire for your business. Take a look at the results of a study by HubSpot below that shows a direct relation between blogging frequency and customer acquisition.
In addition to posting frequently, there are a number of other steps you can take to improve the lead generation capability of your small business blog. Some of these are listed below.
?Here are some tips to generate leads on your blog:
- Use good call to action on all pages
- Take advantage of lead generation forms
- Use your blog to build your email list
- Write about your products and services and how it can benefit customers
Measure and Refine:
Blogging can be very time consuming. To get the most out of your blog, it is important to monitor your blog?s performance and keep a close watch on your stats. Good monitoring will help you to identify what works and what doesn?t. It will also help you to measure and track your growth. But this is only half the battle. Realising the full potential of your blog will depend on your ability to act and refine your blog in response to your stats. This should be a continuous process. Look at your Google Analytics stats daily to see what works and what areas can be tweaked further.
Additionally, small businesses can also benefit by split testing using tools such as Google Website Optimizer. Split testing allows you to try variations and identify what methods produce the best results. You can use it to test different types of calls to action, form design, overall layout or any other element on your blog.
What About You?
A Blog is a great way to market your business. Do you use blog to promote your small business? We would like to hear from you. Please share your experience by leaving a comment below.
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Source: http://www.kronikmedia.co.uk/blog/start-small-business-blog/6576/
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