Blogging has quickly become a business strategy and online-marketing essential for many businesses, big and small to gain publicity and sales online. The beauty of it is that it costs little more than the time you spend creating it, but can bring your business huge rewards.
The trouble is that like social media and the mobile web, making effective use of new tech trends requires that you (to some extent at least) have your finger on the pulse of what’s going on, have something valid to say, and the time to say it!
Our challenge to the small business community here in Milton Keynes is to blog, blog more, and then blog better during 2012.
Here are some simple tips for successful blog writing that kick-start your local online marketing efforts:
1. Have a purpose
Don’t write just for the sake of writing. Find something about your business that makes it different to the rest. A common way for businesses to create a niche is to provide comprehensive, trustworthy, and broad-based information about the industry and business that you are in.
2. Use a framework
Don’t get stuck staring at a white page. Write out the main points you want to talk about in bullet points or using a mind map and split them into different headlined sections. Writing in smaller chunks will make it easier for you and help to make your blog flow better, making it easier to read.
3. Be positive
I’ve seen so many examples of small businesses that use their blog as an outlet for ranting. If you want to turn visitors to your website into clients/customers then you want to make them warm to you. Being passionate is as contagious as a yawn, which is what you don’t want people to do when they read your blog!
4. Promote
After putting so much love and care into your blog it would be a shame for no one to see it. There are so many social media platforms that will help you get your blog out there, such as Facebook and Twitter. Once you have mastered the art of blogging you can then learn the key concepts of SEO to further increase traffic.
5. Network
Now that you have started adding regular content to and promoting your blog, the next step is to find other like-minded bloggers to build a relationship with.
Featured photo courtesy of SEPBlog
