Before you begin setting up a blog on your business website, the question you need to ask yourself is what will get visitors to return to your website frequently to view your new posts.
Certain blog building elements are crucial to the success of building a business blog. All these elements should be in place for a blog to be effective. The basic elements are like building blocks and while they are not difficult to build, they are extremely important.
How you do business
One of the first questions you need to ask yourself is whether the manner in which you conduct business is suitable for blogging. Ask yourself if you are comfortable with sharing certain aspects of your business that your readers are keen to know. If you are not comfortable with being open and honest, then you are most likely to fail at the first hurdle. If you are ready to be honest and transparent, your readers will appreciate you and are more likely to return frequently to your blog.
Technical Platform
Your blog has to be built using technology that supports your objective and will meet your current and long term requirements. Make sure that the technology that you use can grow with your business and is future proof. A number of blogging platforms are now available, the most popular one being WordPress. Whichever platform you choose, ensure that your blog is integrated into your website as you will have a lot more control than with a free standalone blog. WordPress is the most popular self hosted blogging platform and your web developer can easily integrate it into your website.
Planning
A business blog is a marketing tool and not internet technology that diverts from your Company’s business objectives. Treat your blog as a marketing tool, and get the planning right. This is a critical stage of setting up a blog that will save you from months of agony.
Hot tip:
Four critical questions for setting up a blog:
What do you want your blog to be used for?
Who do you want to attract to your blog?
What do you want to achieve?
How will you measure your results?
Visual Appeal
The design of your blog should not only attract attention, but also reflect your corporate image. The colours and typeface used should be in uniformity with the rest of your website. The design should support the business goals and keywords should be used as effectively as possible. Navigation should be intuitive so that visitors are encouraged to view the pages, rather than click away.
What to post?
Once the blog is setup the question that is asked most frequently is, what do I blog about that will give my readers an immense value. It is often tempting to try hard-sell readers on products or services that your business is offering. In this day and age, nothing will put off readers more, than a blatant sales message. No one likes to be sold to, all that readers want is to find a possible solution to their needs. In doing so if you happen to provide a product or service that meets a reader’s need in a non-intrusive manner it is quite likely that you will eventually win a customer.
Hot Tip:
Set aside some time weekly to write a few blog posts. Load them on your blogging platform and schedule the blogs at intervals throughout the week. This way you don’t have to write a blog every day
