Let’s talk about blogging. Blogging is one of the best marketing tools out there for small businesses to use. Blogging gives you the opportunity to establish yourself as an expert in your field and to become a trustworthy resource. It’s also an excellent way to provide quality online content to feed your other social media accounts and draw traffic back to your blog. A blog is an essential for business today, but writing one is often intimidating. Confused about how to get started?
Find 5 helpful tips below:
- Plan Your Content – Have a plan and a schedule (otherwise known as an editorial calendar) for what you post on your blog. Decide how often you want to post and then establish what you want to post about. For a clue on how to do this, look no further than your bookings or check your service order history, identify any trends that may exist and tailor your content accordingly. For example: if you specialize in HVAC it might be beneficial to you to plan a few posts in spring time for how to prepare your AC unit for the coming working months. Work out a few weeks worth of post topics in advance to give you a content guideline.
- Write Well – There’s nothing worse than spelling or grammatical errors on display for all the world to see. Don’t scare off potential customers with poor writing. Most writing programs have spelling and grammar checks, use them every time. If you’re not sure how a post is coming across, try reading it out loud; it’s easier to catch awkward phrases or incomplete thoughts that way.
- Be Authentic – You want your blog to reflect what’s unique about you and about your business. Remember: YOU are the expert. Do your best to make your blog content easy to read and applicable to your audience; they need to find value in what you are posting in order to keep their attention and win their business.
- Keep It Simple – Don’t talk at your audience, have a conversation with them instead. No need to over explain or repeat yourself. Keep things concise and write about topics you know your customers will appreciate.
- Post Regularly – Your marketing task list is no doubt long and crowded, especially when social media is thrown into the mix. It doesn’t do you any favors to forget about posting for a while and then suddenly pick back up. Make sure you keep regular blog posts on the schedule. Once a week or twice a week, once every two weeks, the frequency is up to you, just keep it regular.
Your business blog is the workhorse of your online marketing efforts. Blogging helps search engines find you, helps establish you as an expert, shows customers why they want to do business with you. Incorporate these 5 tips into the mix and you’ll have a good foundation for the kind of content that will earn you customers and add substance to what you do.
For more insights on marketing strategy that actually works for small business, connect with Jay Bean, Founder of FreshLime and Small Business Marketing Expert on LinkedIn and Twitter. If any of these tips have helped you or if you have anything to add, please comment below. We’d love to hear from you!