Create a strategy. Are you selling a product? A service? Who are your customers? What would your customers want to read? Provide great content and your readers will keep coming back and sharing your Blogs with their friends and colleagues giving your business more exposure. My blogs focus on social media marketing, business and personal growth. I’m a strong believer that in business we need to be well, physically, emotionally and spiritually more than ever now. We’re all on-line and more exposed to the outside world, we find ourselves working more and ignoring our own needs. Yes of course we all want to do well in our business, on the other hand no one wants to show up to a meeting with dark circles under the eyes, exhausted from working 16 hr days! Listen to your body and schedule time to look after yourself.
A business blog will help you tremendously with your (SEO) Search engine optimization efforts. Utilizing keywords for your business will make it easier for people to find your content. As an example I could add Social media marketing in Ottawa as Key words for SEO when people are searching for Social media marketing information particularly in the Ottawa area.
I know that when you are running a small business on your own, you don’t always have the resources to Blog for you and as often as you like. You probably do not want to outsource that task as you want your blogs to be authentic, in your own style. It doesn’t matter how often you put out a blog post just as long as you stick to your schedule. It’s also a great idea to post your blogs onto other blog and social media sites for even more exposure for your business! I think the best thing to do is to ensure you ad a blog on a weekly or a monthly basis. I have now created a schedule and I write blog posts ahead of time, so I have them readily available to post. You could also write a list of ideas you’d like to blog about.
Write about topics you know and care about. A blog should really be an extension of your brand. You can offer your thoughts and or lend your voice and expertise in a certain area to your target audience. You could contact other bloggers to cross promote, post your blogs on their sites and you do the same for them.
Mari Smith recommends adding social networking features to your blogs such as Google +, Facebooks share button and Twitters retweet button. This provides readers with the ability to click on the like button and share or Retweet your content out to their Twitter followers which gives you more exposure for your business.
There are free blogging sites such as Wordpress.com as well as Blogger.com and Tumblr.com. Wordpress.org provides more flexibility in design, layout and extra plug-ins and widgets. Blogger.com is owned by Google and posts are more prominent in Google search results. Tumblr.com provides templates and built in social networks. On Blogcatalogue.com you will find information such as Blog posts, blog directories, internet search related sites as well as advanced keyword suggestions. You can sign up for a free account and add your URL as well as Tags about yourself. When you submit your blogs they must first go through their submission process. Write at least 3-4 blogs and then start submitting!
Happy Blogging!
Blog by Linda Graham
www.infinitechange.com