Business blogs are not only essential, but they are a nice touch for your audience as well as bonus opportunity for your company to be found more easily on the Internet. A business blog post is an all-in-one tool that helps potential customers find you and current customers keep in touch with you. It allows you to provide extra information to your customers at no extra charge to them, increasing their loyalty in your company and brand as a result.
A good business blog post will give extra information about your company’s policies and what to do with your goods and services. An even better post will offer advice above and beyond the typical search results while remaining in the same realm of your company’s purpose.
The Basics
Now that you’re convinced you should have a business blog, how do you write one? For starters, set up parameters for which topics you should cover. Think about these questions:
- Is this blog for current consumers or new customers? B2B? Can it be for all three?
- What is the scope of information I’m willing to cover? Relevant topics or specific ones?
- What sort of tone should I implement?
- How often should I post?
- What will my blog look like?
Planning
When you have these answers squared away, you can start mapping out a month’s worth of content and play to your company’s strengths within that month. If it’s June, think about topics related to summer plans and purchases. How is your brand connected to your audience during this time of year? Research what your audience is searching for online and base your editorial calendar off of some of those ideas.
Organization
The order you present information affects how well it will be remembered. The classic Five W’s + H (who, what, when, where, why and how) should be easily answered either in the first paragraph, or in the bold titles in the text. This way, if a person short on time needs to know where they can obtain the good or service you describe, they can easily find the information you put out as opposed to searching another website. A simple format to follow includes:
- A catchy yet descriptive title
- An introductory paragraph stating why the topic is important and in need of explanation
- At least three subtitles that are bold and summarize the paragraph in a few words
- An exit paragraph providing information about your business in relation to blog topic
Pictures are helpful, especially if you are talking about a product during your blog post. Just be sure the images are high-quality and given proper attribution if found online.
Visual Appeal
The “less is more” saying applies to online blogging more than you’d think, especially when the blog is business related. People only have enough time to find what they’re looking for as quickly as possible. If your blog posts are too long, they’ll skip to another site. If posts are too short with too much blank space, it’s not professional enough to garner real interest. Stick to paragraphs no more than 5 lines of text long. Cutting it close? Break up paragraphs with bullets.
Relatability
Almost anything can become relevant with enough digging. Banks and credit unions can make use of summer budgeting posts while service industries can focus on using the warm weather to their advantage. The key to a successful business blog is to plan your topics in advance and learn what the audience wants in that time frame. Appeal to their needs with information they can’t get anywhere else. What does your business offer that they need for this topic?
Get Started!
Remember that a business blog post is predominantly about exposure for your brand, not necessarily selling products. Interject your products sparingly and only when relevant because blogs that are too salesy come off as advertising spam and your customers are inundated with that enough. Stick to proper grammar, spelling and appropriateness at all times, even if your tone is more fun than the average business blog.