How to Create a Blog for Small Business
Let’s say you genuinely want to know how to create a blog for small business, this is the most hands-on guide you will find on the Internet as at today.
There are four issues you have to resolve in order to create a blog for a small business. I mean a successful business blog that will increase awareness, generate more leads, and convert more customers at cheaper rate than advertising.
How do I Create a Blog for Small Business?
These are what you must put in place for a successful small business blog:
- Purpose of the blog -state clearly what your business will achieve with blog
- Benefits to readers -what your business blog will help audience to achieve
- Content Ideas -topics that add value to audience and promote your business
Now, let’s do this.
You should properly outline these points I made. They will help you flesh out an effective blogging strategy for a small business.
Blogging for small business without documented strategy is like touring without map or guide. You will go places, but you won’t know where exactly you are and how to reach where you set out to go in the first place.
To ensure you do not cumber yourself with a trial-and-error mission regarding blogging for your small business, I will open the can of ideas (not worms, nah) I have used over time effectively.
In case you don’t know, I took a website with Domain Authority (DA) 13 to 23 with SEO, blogging, social shares and guest posting for backlinks building within 4 months. You can ask me in private for details, so you go and confirm.
Did I write that to brag? Hell no. It is to assure you that I am sharing with you the drugs that have cured me in recent past.
Why create a blog for small business?
Target the right audience with blog for small business.
Blogging for small business helps you attract the kind of audience you want, inasmuch as as you consider a particular audience segment while planning the content.
For instance, you need you most leads do not convert to customers. You could make findings into why they are not buying despite they have shown interest before. Then, create content that solves this problem.
If you have processes that are a bit complicated, you could create engaging content to demystify the bottleneck. Search also for questions interested buyers are asking and answer such questions with your blog posts.
Capture Influencers for promotion as you create blog posts.
You need influencers to help spread your content. Quoting, referencing or mentioning influencers can get you attention quickly. Make sure you quote influencers correctly and your mentions are quite relevant.
Twitter search for topics being discussed, checking Facebook and LinkedIn groups, questions on Quora will give you clue as to what influencers in your niche are talking about at the moment.
Rank website higher in organic search
One vital way of increasing organic ranking in search is blogging. Except you are industry regulator or trade union, people will rarely share your webpages with their audience.
However, if your small business blog churns out tons of great content consistently, you will naturally attract back links, guest posts requests and social shares. These factors increase credibility with search engines. And as such, your website ranks higher over time.
Answer FAQ or show how to use a product.
Answering questions relating to your business or industry makes you a fixer. Everyone loves a fixer, don’t you?
Wondering where to find questions to answer on blog you create for your small business, use Twitter search, check forums, groups on Facebook and LinkedIn. Through these channels, you will find what people want to know about.
Answer such questions with evidence, if you have results to show for the solution you are recommending.
Get audience to take action (conversion).
Apart from aiming to smooth-talk prospects into doing what you want, great content can motivate them to do so, also share with their friends.
I am yet to meet that person who does not excited when he is considered helpful. As human, it gives us some superior feeling when we realize that we are adding value to others through our actions.
You could tie each blog post to a business activity your readers should take. Maybe you are promoting an app, ebook, offer or whatever, find that place of relevance between what you are blogging about with what you intend to sell.
Every blog post could end with a call to action, for readers to do something. It is a not a crime, if you ask me.
The next thing after determining the business objectives of your blog is to outline how to create blog for small business in such a way that your audience will find it useful.
It is not enough to be a person of success, be a person of significance. Right?
That is it.
Blog posts you create for small business should not just be about selling your brand out. If audience genuinely find value in your blog, you have earned loyal followers who will always visit your website; be it for buying or for reading to gain knowledge.
How will blog for small business help audience?
Help audience solve a problem or accomplish a task.
This is the place of how-to content in blog for small business. There are too many problems to solve in this life. Businesses make money by solving problems in the first place.
Find problems to solve for your audience. They will learn from your content and share with friends. This blog post is an example of what I am saying here.
Inform audience of new topics/trends/updates/tips.
While planning how to create a blog for small business, consider providing latest news, updates, various views of industry leaders as they come by. Always having fresh authentic content consistently is great for building followership.
Followership is hard to come by without consistency. Do you agree?
Inspire amplification/linking by name mentioning or reviewing
Planning how to create a blog for small business will not be complete without including content ideas that will let you quote thought leaders, review some other products, or do follow up on what influencers are up to at the moment.
Content that mention influencers attract social shares like magnet. Try it!
Create association with other brands.
Individuals win matches, teams win championships. On this note, I want to remind you that you should plan to partner with other brands for your small business blog.
When you partner with other businesses to create content, all parties leverage on the pool of audiences available on all sides. Brands that are not in direct competition with yours or complementary products will make great partnership regarding blog for small business.
Entertain audience/provoke opinion sharing
This is a twin piece of advice from me. Entertaining content works across all businesses, regardless of scope, size or age. The same thing goes to opinion-driven content.
Comedians are great content marketers, in case you do not know. Use some humor in your content.
Why are comedians great content marketers?
Comedians squeeze humour out of everyday happenings. The level of creativity used by successful comedians will challenge you to go extra mile to create original content for your target audience.
One other lesson from comedians on how to create a blog for small business: successful comedians -don’t over-use their materials. They constantly develop new materials, new jokes, in order to stay fresh and relevant.
Avoid re-hashing other people’s content. Be original, be fresh!
How do I create a blog for small business?
These are actionable steps on how to create a blog for small business::
- Define target audience by classifying readers into visitors, leads and customers. This helps you create the right content for different people within marketing funnel.
- Choose content pillars that will educate, inform, entertain, share opinion, or do expert roundups to get different perspectives from professionals on the same topic idea, concept or approach.
- Plan, publish and promote content for different audience/classes segment for optimal targeting. This helps you know what CTA or next step to urge audience to take after consuming each piece of content. Share your posts on high authority platforms and link back to your website.
- Identify influencers -draw a list of notable bloggers, social influencers, link sources, thought leaders in your industry. You sure don’t want to create content that nobody is willing to share. Foster relationships with influencers, pitch your content to them for backlinks and social shares.
- Guest Posting will expose your blog to wider audience, so you have to take it seriously. Follow other contributors and participate on leading platforms in your industry. If all you get from guest posting or supporting other popular guest contributors are back links or mentions, good for you. This will take your small business out of obscurity.
What should small business blog about?
I come across people asking for content ideas for small business blog. These are my suggestions:
- Frequently Asked Question
- Research, insights and data from experiments
- Survey outcomes in form of chart, diagrams, infographics
- Industry news and updates
- Opinions of thought leaders
- Expert roundups on common problems
- User reviews or feedback or complaints
- Testimonials
- Latest Trends in the market
- Topics on forums, questions on Quora, Facebook/LinkedIn group discussions
These are steps and actions I have taken in recent time to help small businesses increase brand awareness, online visibility, lead generation, convert and engage more customers chiefly on meager or no budget at all.
Try them out, I know they will give you awesome results. Feel free to use the comment box to share thoughts, ideas, approach or effective strategy on how to create a blog for small business that you know.
Originally published at contentkrush.com on September 17, 2017.
