Inspired!

This is aimed at beginners who would like to blog for business

What is a Blog?

A blog (from web log) is a web page that contains short articles, known as posts, on a variety of subjects. The most recent one appears at the top of the list. Each post has its own unique url that you get by clicking on the title of the post so you can send links to specific posts.

The blogger can set up categories that each post can be linked to, e.g. events, workshops, mentoring, so that a reader can quickly see all the posts in one category.  Blogs in Plain English is a great little video that explains what a blog is.

Why Blog?

Work out what you want your blog to do for your business. Make it part of your marketing strategy and assess its effect.

These are some of the reasons to blog for business

• attract potential clients
• show your expertise
• reveal the personality behind you business
• comment on events you’ve experienced
• publish articles you’ve written
• form the content of newsletters
• discuss industry practice
• initiate discussions
• get good SEO ranking
• drive traffic to your website

Blogging Platforms.

There are over 40 blogging platforms to choose from. The most popular for business are Bloggerand WordPress.

These are the main options to choose from:

1. Free themes (templates) and free hosting are supplied by both Blogger.com and WordPress.comand are the simplest way to get started. However, your blog title will contain the words Blogspot or WordPress rather than a unique domain name so assess if this is the right impression for your business. If you are expecting a lot of traffic these options won’t support it.

2. Free themes and separate (paid for) hosting gives the opportunity for a unique domain name e.g. http://www.annhawkins.com At WordPress.org (different to WordPress.com) there are thousands of free themes to choose from.

3. Paid for themes and paid for hosting give extra functions and flexibility for serious bloggers.

4. Customised themes and flexible hosting packages offer the most flexibility and create a business like appearance with art work matched to your branding, several mail boxes, email addresses and high band width for high volumes of traffic. They also offer ongoing support and training. See Ian McKendrick’s http://killerseosuperblogs.com/ for these packages.

5. Posterous.com is the simplest, non-technical option. You simply email your content and it appears on your blog. I use this for fun .. see http://therealannhawkins.posterous.com

What to write about?

There are only three rules here: be entertaining, useful or interesting.

Having strong opinions and creating a little controversy to generate debate is no bad thing either!

Know your target readers and write for them.

Subjects:

How to …..
Top ten tips to …..
Industry trends
Trade shows/conferences
Help sheets
Competitions / surveys
Profiles of industry leaders / customers / employees
Your response to current events that affect your readers

If you don’t like writing, create a video blog. A flipcam from Amazon costs about £130 and comes with all the connections to plug straight into your computer. Sound and pictures are excellent quality.

You can embed video into your blog or website or create your own YouTube Channel to which people can subscribe. Add keywords to the descriptions and it will rank higher than almost any other content onGoogle.

How to get readers.

Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn are just some of the ways to direct people to your blog. However they each attract a different type of person so you need to work out which is the best channel for YOUR business. You also need to establish relationships with people before they’ll take any interest in your blog and use the same entertain, inform or be interesting rules. Popping in once a week with “New blog update” and a link will have the opposite effect to the one you need to create.

When you’ve got readers, keep them. Invite them to sign up for future updates and you’ll build a mailing list of interested people.

Invite Comments. At the end of each post ask a question and invite comments. Back links from other people’s websites are great for SEO.

Invite Guest Bloggers and offer to be a guest blogger to attract new readers.

SEO Overview.

If your website has a good Google ranking there is no need to host your blog on your website. If it is a new site, adding a blog will help it to get ranked more quickly. Having a blog and website with different urls will give you twice as many chances to get in the top SEO rankings.
WordPress.org blogs can have a “plug- in” (a parcel of code that customizes your blog) called “All in one SEO pack” that enables many SEO friendly features.
Other SEO tricks are to use keywords in the post title and the text, use Paragraph headings rather than a large font and use alternative text for pictures.

What were your experiences as a blogging beginner?

How would you advise other people to get started? Share your comments below.