Content Marketing,  Marketing Strategy

Develop a Better Business Blogging Strategy

Business blogging is a marketing tactic that has so many benefits, that every business should have no excuses for not starting one.

Ok, maybe your brochure or static website needs a facelift so the blog can be incorporated…  But if you make the effort to move your marketing into the future, you will find your efforts are 100% worth it.

But how do you go about developing an effective and beneficial blog for your business?  Especially if you have never “blogged” before?  Well, like everything else in marketing, having the right plan and strategy in place before you begin is the best way to go about it.

Then you can make the advantages of blogging really work for you.

Your Blogging Strategy

Firstly you need to decide exactly what you want your blog to achieve.  You can use your blog to work the following advantages:

  • Engaging your Customers
  • Driving Traffic
  • Enhancing your SEO

However, if you start blogging randomly without a proper strategy, you risk turning the advantages against you.

Decide on a Blogging Calendar

This one is very important for all three advantages.  Once you have made the commitment for your business to start blogging, you first need to decide when the blogs will be published – daily, weekly, fortnightly, monthly.  It’s entirely up to you.  And as long as you commit to publishing on a regular basis, it really doesn’t matter how often you blog.  Blogging at least “weekly” is best.

Decide Who Will Blog

Will all the staff blog?  Or just one person?  It should be decided in the plan exactly who will be responsible for publishing the blog, writing the blogs, and checking the blogs.

Once you’ve decided who will blog, they need to put together a bio of around 30 words, detailing a little bit about them.  It doesn’t need to be too formal.  They will also need their photo or gravatar to go with the blog.  This keeps the blog personal, so when customers or potential customers read the blog, they know exactly who in your business it’s coming from.

Number of Words

There are many opinions across the internet, on how many words are ideal for a business blog.  I think it’s more important to keep it interesting, easy to read and relevant.  I would advise at least 250 words, but it may be best to focus on around 500 words ideally.

Blogs of up to 1,500 words may be suitable at times, as long as the words are broken into easy readable chucks.  Huge blocks of pure text can send your readers to sleep.

Blogging Topics and Keywords

This is very relevant towards your SEO (search engine optimisation), which is your organic ranking on the search engines.  Before you start blogging, you need to decide exactly what topics you will blog about.  The topics and keywords you use in your blog will have a direct long term influence on your traffic, so make sure you decide these from the start.

Examples:

If you own a business law firm, it may make sense to blog about:

  • The latest laws news affecting your clients
  • Business news
  • Your company news

If you have a real estate agency, it may make sense to blog about:

  • Real Estate and Property News – market conditions
  • News about your neighbourhood – new roads, schools, parks, etc…
  • Things happening in your agency – new staff, new website, or office refurb

From this you should get the general idea about what’s best to blog about for your business.  It’s a good idea to choose a variety of subjects and topics, to give the blog a good mix, and drive interest for your followers.

Regarding the “keywords” you use in your blog, it’s best to choose words relevants to your business, and to your industry, that potential customer may search for.  You can set up these keywords as “tags” in your blog.  Choosing your keywords at the outset, and sticking to them, will keep you on track with your topics and help drive the SEO.

In Summary

Having a blog for your business, should not stand alone, but be a part of your entire Digital Marketing Strategy for your business.  On its own, it will still perform, but incorporated with other digital marketing such as social media networks, can really boost awareness and leads for your business.

I’d love to hear your thoughts and feedback on business blogging?

Marketing Manager, Content Strategist and Writer driving Engagement and ROI. On weekends I'm a Property Investor, Traveler & Coffee Snob

6 Comments

  • social media business strategy

    Like Ronika, I am very much agree to have a business blogging strategy because it one way of proving your customers that your business can be trusted. And you could entertain much of your customers concern through this.

  • ronika

    I agree that it is important to have a business blogging strategy
    My blog tends to cover topics that come up or that I anticipate will come up during discussions with clients. Eg. My latest post deals with how to update a new sales tax in Quickbooks, which is something I needed to advise my clients about anyway. By writing it as a blog post, I could email it to my clients and have it accessible to anyone else(potential clients) that needs the info.

    • Fiona

      @Corri, Thanks so much Corri. I’m glad you liked the insights 🙂 You are a pretty good blogger yourself, and you write from the heart, which is the best start.

  • Extreme John

    It’s great to see you writing about some business blogging this week, especially since I’ve really amped up my interaction on my companies business blog. I actually find blogging for my business blog much easier than my personal blog Extreme John.com

    It might be because the content seems to never end.

    Regardless all excellent tips, I just read a few other tips on Copy Blogger, now to put your tips and his to good use.

    • Fiona

      @Extreme John, Hi John, Thanks for popping by. I’m happy you liked my advice. The topic of “business blogging” has been buzzing around in my mind for a while. I have a few different angles on the topic, and I thought I should start sharing.

      You look like you have a tough job, writing 2 blogs… 😉 But it’s good to hear that you see so much value in blogging.