Tips and Tricks for Getting your Business Blog off to a Flying Start

Blogs are great for boosting SEO, engaging current and potential customers and showcasing your business to the online world.

If you’ve been on the internet this week (if not, well done you) you’ll have probably seen that much loved vlogger and blogger Zoella is killing it on the blogging scene and is making a whopping 50k a month. That’s almost double the UK’s average salary per annum in one month. Yup, in one month. Whilst you may be screaming and shaking your fists at the computer, you have to admit the gal has worked hard to get to where she is.

If you want your business to dip its toe into blogging, we’ve got a few helpful tips to get you started. We did try to holla at Zoella for some insider info, but she was too busy releasing her new book/makeup line (whatever).

Find Your Blog Niche

When you’re in the planning stages with your blog, think about your business’s tone of voice, who you’re targeting the blogs at, and what sort of content you want to post about.

Ask yourself: what is your business’s unique selling point? If condiments are your thing, then run with it. It’s not often you see a comparison list of the best mayonnaises in the UK (we all know it’s Hellman’s), step away from the traditional topics and blog a little differently.

We recommend you try and write around 10 blogs before you publish any. Not only does it give you future content to sit on, but it’ll test you on whether you can write a number of blogs on your chosen topics. We recommend posting around two blogs a week, it’s not overly demanding and it helps keep content fresh, ensuring that visitors return to your website (if they like what they see).

To quote Lucie Loves’ blog: “A blog is like a relationship. Give it some love and it will flourish. Ignore it and it will die a death. There’s no point in being half-hearted in your blogging effects – if you don’t care about it, why should anyone else?”.

If you’re struggling to think of content, start off by making lists. We’ve heard this tip a couple of times in the marketing sphere - it’s probably Buzzfeed’s fault, but people just LOVE lists, and they can help to boost SEO too. Whether your company’s topic be business advice, personal training or even candle blogging, you’re very likely to find a top ten list you can write that’s relevant to your company.

Platform 9 ¾

You’ve probably already got a website for your business (and if you don’t, you really should). We personally love Wordpress. It’s easy, affordable, and has loads of free templates that you can use to make it look super jazzy. You can also download the app so you can get blogging from your mobile too, handy. If you want to have your own domain, you have to pay. If you don’t mind having .wordpress in the URL, it’s free, but this also means you technically don’t own the blog, which is quite strange.

There are loads of other platforms out there too, if you’re not a fan of Wordpress; Tumblr and Blogger are to name but a few, and they’re also relatively easy to use as well.

Social Media is your Mate

Wondering how you can attract consumers to your blog? Social media will initially be your best mate in this. Once you’ve got a hefty amount of content up, start sharing through your company’s social media pages and get your colleagues, mates and cats to do the same. Are you a member of any forums? Post your blogs in there too, with links directly to your website. Once your blog is a few months old, you’ll start to get traffic wafting through from search engines.

Another tip to get more people to your blog is to follow bloggers’ followers on Twitter. It’s likely that they’ll follow you back and read (and hopefully enjoy) your content. Obviously, make sure that a link to your blog is somewhere in your Twitter bio. You can use the same tactic on Instagram.

LinkedIn Pulse also allows you to publish blog posts. Your content will show up just like an article, it looks pretty snazzy too. You can add images, videos, presentations, tweets, podcasts and any other type of rich media to make your post more appealing. The most exciting feature is that you can add up to three tags, making it much easier for people to find your post. Put a link at the top of the post saying where the blog was originally featured, and link it back to your website. All your connections on LinkedIn will get notified once you’ve added the post, which will hopefully result in them clicking through to your blog.

In a Nutshell

• Find your niche
• Have unpublished blogs to sit on
• Choose a blogging platform
• Social media is your mate
• Follow your competitor’s followers

Good luck! If you have any questions or want to share your blog with us, comment below, we’d love to hear from you 

The times are changing, outbound is outdated and in some cases, can be potentially dangerous for your brand financially and in a reputational sense. Big fines are being handed out to serial data offenders. With inbound you can avoid this and get the best from your leads so read our blog “How to create Inbound Strategy Masterclass” for more information.”