Blogging for your business
jennsweb.blogspot.com
Recently I looked at my client list and realized that I now have quite a few whose sites include a blog. Some of them update the blog on a regular basis and send out an email to all their subscribers to let them know there’s something new to read. Others put a new post up once in a while and then there’s the ones who wrote 2 or 3 posts in a rush when their site was first launched and haven’t updated since then.
Not that there’s anything wrong with being taciturn. Hey, in New England it’s practically a virtue, but with so much online customer/company interaction these days, having a blog and never doing anything with it is like hiding in the stockroom when a customer walks in the door.
I think a lot of it has to do with the sheer vastness of the blog-0-sphere. There’s a dizzying array of blogging platforms, services, widgets, feeds and gadgets out there that can make any busy business owner throw up their hands and retreat back into their snail-mail newsletter shell. So, hopefully, I can help by breaking this complex idea down into its basic components.
Why would I want to have a blog in the first place?
Because it’s fun! It really is. Whether it’s finding a great site that would help your customers find useful information, great photos from your company cook-out, or even the news that someone at your firm had a baby, it’s a good feeling to put it out there for everyone to see. It’s also a way to turn a problem into a positive thing. When I’ve had to spend an entire afternoon searching for a solution to an issue on a client’s site, putting a post up that shows how I solved the problem not only helps me to have it “on-file” for the next time the issue comes up, it’s good karma to provide an answer where none existed before!
Some other great reasons to have a blog for your business are:
1: It’s good for the environment. Remember the mailed-out newsletter? I still get one from AAA every quarter and I’m usually so busy, it goes right into the recycling bin. Instead of all that formatting and list merging, envelope-licking and stamp buying, a blog post, set to be emailed via RSS to a client who has opted for email updates, has a much better chance of actually being read and doesn’t use any paper!
2. It’s free advertising. Sure, you could spend hundreds of dollars on print ads, even more on an Adwords campaign, but perhaps the most effective way to gain new business is to provide an online resource for customers to find out more about your business. People are always happy (and grateful!) to receive free information. Informed and happy is how you want people to feel when they come to you for business.
How do I get a blog?
There are many blogging “platforms” out there, but the 2 I am most familiar with are Wordpress (which runs this site) and Blogger. Wordpress offers 2 options. If you don’t want to deal with signing up for your own self-hosted (published under your own site name on a hosting company’s server) blog, then you can go to Wordpress.com and get a blog going there.
Your Wordpress Blog "dashboard"
If you have your own site already and you just want to add the blog to it, you can either install Wordpress in a subfolder of your site (and call the folder “blog”) and then just add a link to it in your navigation (example: jennmearswebdesign.com/blog), or you can set up your entire site in Wordpress and assign a page to contain the blog portion of the site.
(Editor’s note: Blogger now has a Pages gadget to add static pages to your blog.)
Blogger is now a service offered by Google. A blogger.com blog’s URL looks like this:
http://salemliving.blogspot.com
If you have a Google account, just sign in and go to Settings, then Google Account Settings. Blogger is listed there along with other great (free!) tools to enhance your blog.
Your Blogger Dashboard
By the way, getting a Google account is a very useful overall step to take a business owner. It allows you to create a Google Maps listing for your business and get easy-to-access online email as well as being a foundation for many cool blogging tools such as Feedburner.
Feedburner lets you provide a way for readers to follow your blog.
What do I write about and how often?
For a straight-up business blog, it’s best to focus your writing on information related to your business. For example, I have a client that’s a lawyer and their blog consists of posts about various court case rulings that affect their area of practice. If you are in the medical field, it may be a good idea to write about medical studies and other news related to your particular area of medicine. A blog is your opportunity to give your clients useful information that is tailored just to them. You know your clients and you know when things need to be put into layman’s terms and phrased in ways that they will understand.
Of course not every entry needs to be cut and dry information about your field. Posts can be about things that are happening in your life like how much fun you are having coaching your daughter’s softball team, or a great new restaurant you ate at the other night. Having a month-long special in your store? Put up a post on your blog and then publish updates throughout the month about how sales are going. I publish a new post when I launch a new website and it lets people know what kinds of clients I have and how I approach different web design situations.
How often should you write on your blog? This is a pretty open-ended question. The best answer is to sit down, think about your schedule throughout the week, and try to find 15-30 minutes somewhere that you can use for updating your blog. Blogs that are updated on a steady basis are the ones that quickly develop loyal followers. It’s not quantity, it’s quality. A single well-written post with cool pictures and links once a week is 10 times better than a gaggle of half-baked, info-light random blurbs.
Good tip: If you are worried that you will end up staring at a blank editing window, come “blog-time”, take some time to write down at 10 different ideas for posts and save them for a rainy day. I keep a notebook throughout the day when I’m working and it really helps when I have writer’s block to flip through and find the different ideas scattered throughout the pages.
How can I get people to read my blog?
Tell people that it’s there! If you already have a client email list, then send out an email with the link to the blog in it. Just be sure you are comfortable with how your blog looks first and you’ve got at least 2 or 3 (proofread!) posts on the home page already.
Be sure to include a way for people to subscribe to your blog via email. (By default, all blogs offer a way to “check in” for updates via an RSS feed but unless your audience is particularly tech-savvy, they won’t likely choose to do so. Also, most people check their email at least once a day. Your blog’s feed service will check your blog periodically and send out an email to a subscriber if you have posted new stuff.
Also, if you are on any social network that lets you post a profile, add your blog’s URL to your profile. Provide a “feed” of your blog on your Facebook profile or page and people can visit your profile and get updated on your blog in one visit.
Basically, the easier you make it for people to read and follow your blog, the more your blog will be read.
Best Blogging Practices
Be succinct
Title your posts wisely. Web crawlers look for keywords primarily in page titles which, for a blog post is the title of the post.
Pictures keep people reading. Just make sure you are using them legally.
Keep your content organized and easy to search through. Using tags and categories (basically assigning relevant keywords to a post) will make it easier for readers to browse your blog (and keep browsing!)
Open a dialogue with your readers. Was this post helpful for you? Not anything you didn’t know already? Do you have more questions? Send me some feedback below!
