Business Blogging Tips
Blogging is a great tool for search engine optimization. They can build trust, increase traffic to your web site, and improve sales. Journalists or other bloggers may start writing about you. A blog has other benefits too - blogs can add a human face to your company.
So, here are my tips for anyone starting a new blog:
Business Blogging Tips
- Post frequently - you won’t get recognition if you don’t post regularly. Most blog software (like Wordpress) allows you to write several posts and schedule them ahead. So designate a few hours every Monday to write posts. [NOTE: I should take this advice! We spend more time helping clients blog than blogging sometimes!]
- Find someone in your organization who can write - it may be someone who is already blogging, or who has personality and knowledge. Customer service or admin staff can be great choices. They may welcome the chance to develop a new skill. They usually know what customers are asking about that could be made into great posts.
- Give useful information - Write about and link to new updates of your site, answer to common questions, examples of projects using your products or services. Add pictures of places who’ve used your product, mentions in magazines, tips, lists. “How to” posts are popular as are creative ways to use your products.
- Get customers involved - ask people to send in pictures of their projects and a short paragraph about them. Flatter customers by showcasing them on your blog (or if they blog, highlight it) - with their permission of course. You can include success stories or testimonials too.
- If you are out of ideas or want to add variety to your blog, ask for guest posts by partners/manufacturers to give customers more in-depth insight into products. Or, ask employees to guest post on their expertise. They can email you their thoughts which you can add to the blog.
- Sign up for Google alerts and put one on your company name, products, or buzzwords so you can track what is being said about your company online. Then you can comment back, get ideas for posts, and write about what people are saying.
- Make your blog readable - it’s hard to read online. Avoid large blocks of text. Use shorter sentences, headers, and bullet points. Give some white space.
- Use categories - categorize the post by a general theme. One post can have several categories.
- Add links! New bloggers don’t often link to other sites which really hurts their visibility.
Link back to a relevant page on your site.
Link to related articles.
Link to examples on your web site.
Also put links in blogroll to sections of your site. - SEO your posts. Use keywords in anchor text and title of blog posts. If you use Wordpress install the plugin Headspace 2 to auto-generate SEO-friendly links (I love 1-click installer to easily add new plugins to your blog). Also change your permalinks so words rather than numbers become the URL of your posts.
- Respond to comments, which encourages more comments and can lead to an idea for another post. If the comment is negative, respond fast and thank them for expressing their opinion. Ask how you can improve, point out ways you’re addressing the issues. This is a chance to right a wrong with the public watching.
A Couple of Examples
This blog is so dense there is no space to breathe! They have done well on categories though.
Kodak has done well on their blogroll - it links to major sections of their web site. They use links but not many keywords. This blog has been very successful for Kodak. They get invitations to speak at conferences and recognition. Notice how many pictures there are.
This blog from a small winery has a lot of personality, creativity, and authenticity - so much that it’s fun to read even if you don’t drink or live nearby!
One last thing - to find popular blogs (they are ranked) try blog search engine Technorati. You can also submit your blog to their list.
