Wondering how to create a successful business blog?
The concept of a business blog may be a bit confusing at first. After all, when you think of the word “blog,” you probably think of personal websites where people put things like recipes, opinion pieces, or updates on their day-to-day lives.
While plenty of blogs have content like this, it’s getting increasingly common to see both small and large businesses alike using blogs to promote their products and services and educate potential clients about them.
These businesses don’t just do this for fun—blogs have proved to be a successful method of content marketing. In fact, according to Hubspot, 81% of companies consider their blogs “important” or “critical,” while brands that create 15 blog posts per month average 1,200 new leads per month.
However, blogs are only as effective as you make them. If you want to create a successful business blog, these are the five most important tips you should follow.
In a rush? Get this article as a PDF guide so you won’t miss these tips!
1. Write for Your Customers, Not Your Business
It’s easy to fall into the trap of writing only content that’s directly related to your product or business. After all, you want potential customers to know what you’re all about.
But if you focus only on promoting your business, you’re going to turn people off quickly.
The fact is, while pieces about the awards you’ve won, team members you’ve hired, or performance metrics you’ve accomplished may be important from an internal perspective, most of your clients and prospects don’t care about that stuff.
Sure, it may help your brand image if people know you’ve won awards or hit certain quotas. But people don’t read blogs to learn how successful your business is. They read blogs to learn new information and solve their own problems.
That’s why the most successful business blogs focus on delivering content with real informational value to their readers.
If you can write articles that teach your customers something new or help them solve a problem they’re facing, you’ll get a lot further in capturing their attention.
Put yourself in your customers’ shoes and think about what kinds of information they would find valuable. Then create engaging content about that information and tie it back to your business only when it makes sense.
Don’t Miss: 7 Tips on How to Become a Blogger With High Engagement
2. Stick to a Strategic Schedule
Many blogs fail because they are updated infrequently and inconsistently.
It’s easy to get excited about a new blog, post five times a week, then run out of ideas and stamina as time goes on. This leads to a blog page that’s still live even though it’s been updated only once in two years, which sends confusing messages to readers.
If you’re going to commit to writing a business blog, be strategic about it. Set a schedule and stick to it.
The best way to do this is by creating a content calendar. This will help you map out what topics you want to write about and when to publish those articles. You can also delegate who writes each post, which gives your team realistic and achievable timelines.
When you’re making your content calendar, be sure to post regularly and stagger your posts thoughtfully. You don’t want to bombard your readers with new articles every day, but you also don’t want them to forget about your blog because they haven’t seen anything new in months. Also, 10 blogs about one topic in a row, followed by never speaking of it again, just won’t work.
A good rule of thumb is to post once or twice a week on topics that are related but not too similar. This will give you enough time to write quality content without bombarding your readers or leaving them hanging for too long.
And if you can’t commit to that yet, that’s okay. Write once every two weeks, or even once a month, and then build up to more often when you feel ready. A slow but consistent blog will be more successful than a sporadic or dead blog.
Don’t Miss: Blog Post Checklist: Top 7 Things to Check Before You Publish Your Blog Post
3. Plan Ahead
When you’re developing your content calendar, it’s also important to plan ahead with your topic ideas. You don’t want to be scrambling to write a post from scratch the morning it’s due with no idea what it should be about.
Before you start your blog, dedicate a few hours to brainstorming some post ideas. Aim for at least 10, but more is better.
After you have some ideas, start splitting them up into categories. You may see some patterns emerge, which can be useful for staggering your content. You could even create segments or sections of your blog.
For example, if you have a beauty product company, you can have separate sections for skin-related, hair-related, and makeup-related content. You could even have more unique sections, like environmental impact or reviews on popular products. Then, commit to writing posts on each of these topics on a rotating basis.
Creating high-level organization like this is known as content strategy, and it’s useful for keeping different audiences engaged simultaneously.
And if you want help ensuring that your content is organized properly, reach out to us at Super Copy Editors. We can help you edit your content to make sure it’s clear and relevant, which saves you time during the revision process and ensures a greater chance of success. Learn more about our comprehensive blog post proofreading services.
4. Make Your Content Easy to Find and Share
Have you ever Googled a topic and kept seeing the same low-value articles come up, while the articles that actually have the information you want are buried deeper in the search results?
This happens because search results aren’t necessarily ranked by how valuable the content is. Instead, they’re ranked by how well articles use search engine optimization (SEO) techniques.
SEO involves a lot of different elements, and there are entire companies dedicated to helping people get their content ranking higher.
Here are some basic best practices to keep in mind when writing your blog posts:
- Use keywords. A keyword tool like Semrush, Ahrefs, or Moz can tell you what words and phrases people might be searching to find an article like yours. For example, if your article is about UX design, a keyword might be “UX best practices.” It’s important to hit a sweet spot between being too specific and too vague.
- Encourage sharing and cross-posting. The more popular and shared your post is, the higher it will rank. Share your post on social media and make it easier for others to share and link to by adding buttons at the bottom of the page.
- Don’t sacrifice quality for quantity. It’s better to have fewer high-quality articles than a ton of low-quality ones. Google will likely penalize you if it thinks you’re trying to game the system by writing a bunch of fluff articles.
5. Be Creative
Part of the reason blogs are popular is that they’re extremely flexible and allow for lots of creativity. They’re human, messy, and feel more individual and personal than a simple advertisement.
That’s why it’s important to think creatively when it comes to brainstorming topics, schedules, and, really, anything else about your blog.
Your blog doesn’t always have to immediately relate to your product or service. Many of the most successful business blog posts don’t.
Don’t be afraid to:
- Talk about topics you know your prospects are interested in, even if they don’t have a direct connection to your business.
- Create in-depth analyses of data, interviews with subject-matter experts, or other detailed content that may seem too high-level for a blog.
- Share more personal, silly, or low-value stories, like personal narratives or posts that relate to pop culture or trendy conversations.
The aim is to keep people engaged and coming back for more, even if they don’t buy anything right away. If you can get them interested in your company and what you have to say, they’re much more likely to buy from you when they’re finally ready to take the plunge.
So use your best judgment with what works for your brand, and don’t be afraid to have a little fun with it.
Don’t forget! Download “5 Tips for Creating a Successful Business Blog” to keep it handy and take action on it. Click here to download it now.
Work With Super Copy Editors to Make a Successful Business Blog
After you finish drafting your blog posts, the next big step is revising and editing them to make sure there are no unprofessional mistakes or problems with flow.
Although you can do this yourself, this is where working with a professional copy editor comes in handy.
Our expert team of editors and proofreaders at Super Copy Editors can help take your blog posts from good to great. We know how to make sure your posts are readable, interesting, on brand for your company, and free from grammar and stylistic mistakes.
Get in touch with us today for a free, no-obligation quote for our editing services. We’re here to help you on your blogging journey!
