A study by HubSpot showed that blogging for your business helped get 55% more website visitors and 13 times more ROI than businesses that don’t.
So, it seems like a no-brainer that businesses both big and small, should embrace business blogging and integrate it into their overall marketing strategy.
But, sometimes getting started can be the hardest part…
And if you’ve never created a business blog before then you might not know exactly where to begin, and what you need to do to ensure that it is a success.
In this blog, we’ll explore how to get started on your business blog, including what to think about before you get started and how to make the most of it.
What you need to do BEFORE you start writing a business blog…
You know a business blog is a crucial component of the success puzzle
But, the problem is you have no idea where to begin…
Team Ninja to the rescue
Not only have we built our own business blog from the ground up, but we’ve implemented successful blogging strategies for numerous clients, and so we know a bit about how to get started.
- Determine your ideal audience…
- Create a content plan…
So, let’s dig into these a little deeper so that you understand how to start a blog…
1. Determine your ideal audience…
Who are you writing for?
Seth Godin said:
“When you speak to everyone you speak to no one”
The best way to ensure that you sell nothing is to assume that your product or service is for everybody. It’s not, there are certain people that will buy your product or service, and you’ll need to speak to them in a specific way to ensure that your message resonates with them.
So, before you start any content creation, it’s important that you figure out who you are talking to, and who your ideal target audience is.
This will not only help you understand what you should be talking about on your blog, and what type of questions your ideal customer will be asking. But it will also help you solidify the tone and messaging.
Knowing who your customers are and how to reach them is vital to ensure your marketing is going to reach the people that will buy from you.
2. Create a content plan….
“I don’t know what to write about”
It’s one of the most common concerns that we hear before people begin their business blog.
However, I can almost guarantee that once you start writing down content ideas they will overflow, and it’s likely that you will have more than enough to create a plan from.
In fact, it’s likely that finding the time will be more of a struggle than thinking of ideas.
The key is to remember that your customers are the star of your business blog.
It’s not about you.
It shouldn’t be about how great you are, or how many awards you’ve won - it’s about creating value for your customers - not showing off.
You’ll want to create a content plan based on the questions and keywords that your potential customers are searching for.
There are four main steps that you should follow to create a solid content plan:
- Find out what keywords and keyphrases you are currently ranking for
- Think of all the specific keywords and keyphrases you want to show up for in search results (which you currently aren’t)
- Research which keywords have good search volume
- Pull all this information together to create blog titles
You can compile all these titles into a spreadsheet, and then create a calendar of the dates that these blog titles will be published on.
Basic Blog Content Plan
Creating a plan will not only ensure that you are writing about the right things. But it will also reduce your stress, and help you keep accountable to your content goals.
We would recommend that you post regularly on your blog, although what this means will vary from business to business. Posting on a weekly basis at a minimum, however, it’s advisable to make a realistic plan that you’ll be able to stick to.
If you need help with your business content plan get in touch.
Related content: The 4 steps to creating a powerful content planHow to measure the success of your blog…
Like any marketing effort, you need to know that your business blog is having an impact on your bottom line.
So, how do you do this?
There will be both qualitative and quantitative returns on your business blogging, that you can monitor in order to ensure that it is working.
Some of the things that you can measure are:
Website traffic (via Google Analytics)
Leads
Form submissions
Lead magnet downloads
Email subscriptions
Sales enquiries
Revenue
However, you’ll also find that you start to have better quality sales calls, more informed customers and shorter sales cycles, all things that can impact the bottom line of your business. These things are much more difficult to measure than quantitative measurements, but they are equally as important for driving revenue.
Monitoring the impact that blogging is having on your business will allow you to tweak and optimise your content plan to make way for continual improvement.
How to make the most of your business blog…
Excellent, you’ve hit publish on your blog.
So, your work is done now, right?
Sorry…there is still more to do.
But that’s good news, as your blog not only sits on your website and helps to drive traffic, it can also be used to nurture leads and turn them into customers.
You can not only repurpose your blog content and turn it into ideas for your social media posts, but you can also drip feed the information in them to customers via your email list.
This will allow you to educate and inform your customers, with information that is tailored to their point in the customer journey.
Doing this with your blog content will amplify the impact of your business blog and increase the return that you have.
Related content: Why nurture works
Need help with your business blogging?
You’re sold! You know exactly why and how you can create your new business blog, but now you need a little help implementing your plan.
We can help…
Get in touch and see how we can help you nail your business blog (alongside your entire lifecycle marketing) this year.
